3Frnm  tljp  Slibrartr  nf 
Jprinrftntt  ©t^polngtral  ^minar^ 


8721    .05  P7 
<Ji  J  e 
Pr 

knowi  *^dge 


^^s,   Chauncey,  jon 
ogress  in  sof r ■ i ^ ^~ ^ ^^3 
nowled^P  spiritual 


1 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/progressinspiritOOgile_0 


PROGRESS  t 


IN 


SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE 


BY  THE 

REV.  CHAUNCEY  "^ILES 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  NATURE  OF  SPIRIT,"  "THE  INCARNATION  AND  ATONEMENT,' 
"  HEAVENLY  BLESSEDNESS,"  ETC. 


A  MEMORIAL  VOLUME 


PHILADELPHIA 

AMERICAN  NEW-CHURCH  TRACT  AND  PUBLICATION 

SOCIETY 

2129  CHESTNUT  STREET 
1895 


Copyright,  1895, 

BY 

American  New-Church  Tract  and  Publication  Socibty. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

Biographical  Sketch   5 

I.  — Progress  in  Spiritual  Knowledge  .....  67 

II.  — The  Doctrines  of  the  New  Church  a  Spir- 

itual Science   80 

III.  — God  and  Man   94 

IV.  — The  Divine  Method  of  Creating   108 

V. — Man  a  Form  Receptive  of  Life   120 

VI. — The  Kingdom  of  God  within  You   135 

VII. — HuM.\N  Beauty:   Its  Origin,   Nature,  and 

the  Means  of  Acquiring  it   147 

Vlll.— The  Origin  of  Evil   161 

IX. — Sin  and  its  Punishment   176 

X. — The  Divine  Mercy  in  Suffering  and  Evil  .  194 

XI.  — The  Atonement  :   Who   made  it,  Why  it 

was  Necessary,  How  it  was  Effected  .  .  205 

XII.  — The  First  and  Second  Death  ,  224 

XIII.  — Heaven    240 

XIV.  — Children  in  Heaven   257 

XV. — The  Ministry  of  Angels  to  Infancy  ....  267 

XVI.  — Nature  a  Divine  Language   282 

XVII.  — Parables   292 

XVIII. — The  End  of  the  World   305 

XIX. — The  Second  Coming  of  the  Lord   322 

XX. — How  to  get  the  Most  Good  out  of  Labor 

and  this  World   343 

XXI. — Peace  in  the  Lord   359 


3 


CHAUNCEY  GILES.* 


IT  is  beautiful,  when  in  the  peaceful  days  at  the  close  of 
a  long  and  useful  life  the  thoughts  look  back  over  the 
way  which  has  been  travelled,  delighting  to  see  the  hand 
of  Providence  in  events  which  at  the  time  seemed  unim- 
portant and  often  unfortunate  ;  and  when  they  turn  from 
such  memory  of  the  past  to  anticipation  of  renewed  life 
in  the  higher  world  where  the  same  Divine  hand  will  be 
more  plainly  felt  and  followed  with  more  perfect  trust. 
So  it  was  with  the  Rev.  Chauncey  Giles,  who  passed  into 
the  spiritual  world  at  his  home  in  Philadelphia,  Novem- 
ber 6,  1893. 

Mr.  Giles's  earliest  memories  took  him  back  to  the 
hills  of  western  Massachusetts,  where  he  was  born,  in 
Charlemont,  on  the  banks  of  the  Deerfield  River,  on  the 
iith  of  May,  1813.  The  region  is  picturesque,  and  to 
one  who  visits  it  in  simimer  is  most  attractive  ;  but  the 
hills  are  rocky  for  the  plough,  and  farming,  the  business 
of  the  people,  is  laborious.  The  winters,  too,  are  long 
and  cold,  and  for  months  the  ground  is  buried  in  snow 
and  the  river  is  frozen  with  clear  ice,  often  several  feet  in 
thickness. 

The  parents  of  the  friend  whose  life  we  are  recording 

This  biographical  sketcli  is  reprinted  with  slight  change  from 
The  New-Church  Reineiv  of  January,  1894,  by  the  permission  of 
the  publishers. 


6         PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


were  John  and  Almira  Avery  Giles.  They  were  people 
of  ability  and  of  more  than  usual  cultivation  and  refine- 
ment. The  father  was  educated  as  a  physician,  but  ill 
health  prevented  his  following  his  profession.  His  son 
Chauncey  was  the  eldest  of  seven  children,  and  as  a  boy 
he  became  accustomed  to  hard  work,  and  felt  early  that 
some  share  of  responsibility  rested  upon  him  for  the 
support  of  the  family  and  the  education  of  the  younger 
children. 

The  life  in  Charlemont  was  such  as  belonged  to  the 
"good  old  times"  in  New  England.  Children  enjoyed 
out-door  sports,  especially  skating  and  coasting  in  the 
winter.  For  those  a  little  older,  hard  work  was  relieved 
by  the  diversions  of  singing-school  and  apple-parings  and 
quilting-bees,  and  by  an  occasional  holiday,  notably 
Thanksgiving  Day  and  the  General  Muster,  when  they 
gathered  from  far  and  near  to  the  yearly  parade  of  the 
men  liable  to  military  service.  Sundays  were  kept  with 
the  Puritan  strictness,  and  the  family  spent  a  long  day  at 
the  distant  meeting-house.  From  sunset  Saturday  even- 
ing it  became  sinful  to  lau;^h  or  play  or  even  to  walk  in 
the  fields  for  pleasure.  The  constraint  was  relieved  at 
Sunday's  sunset,  when  the  women  brought  out  their 
knitting  and  children  began  their  games.  Books  were 
very  .scarce  in  those  days.  There  was  no  periodical 
literature,  with  the  exception  of  a  small  weekly  paper 
which  was  taken  by  only  a  few  people.  The  Bjble  and 
hymn-book  with  the  longer  and  shorter  catechism,  and 
perhaps  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  or  Baxter's  "Saint's 
Rest"  were  all  that  came  within  children's  reach.  A 
copy  of  the  Spectator  was  read  ami  re-rcad  by  Mr.  Giles, 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


7 


and  even  a  volume  from  his  father's  medical  library  was 
tried  in  the  hunger  for  new  thoughts.  It  was  at  one  of 
the  General  Musters,  while  still  quite  a  boy,  that  he 
bought  a  copy  of  Cowper's  "  Poems"  and  of  Milton's 
"Paradise  Lost,"  and  he  spent  many  a  long  winter  even- 
ing reading  them  over  and  over  again  by  the  bright  fire- 
light. Mr.  Giles  well  remembered  the  intense  delight  he 
used  to  feel  when  as  a  small  boy  he  would  pore  o\'er  the 
pages  of  a  large  Bible  in  a  neighbor's  house,  and  the 
wonderful  charm  of  the  story  of  Joseph  arranged  for 
children,  a  copy  of  which  came  into  his  hands. 

The  first  instruction  Mr.  Giles  received  was  from  his 
father,  and  what  was  lacking  in  aids  to  learning  was  made 
up  in  earnestness.  He  has  told  me  how  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  do  his  "sums"  with  a  bit  of  charcoal  on  the 
hearth  before  the  fire,  and  how  dearly  he  prized  his  first 
slate  earned  by  chopping  a  cord  of  wood.  Years  after, 
contrasting  the  circumstances  of  his  own  early  life  with 
the  larger  opportunities  of  another,  Mr.  Giles  said,  "I 
had  no  books,  no  social  influence  that  tended  to  develop 
a  taste  for  literature,  or  cultivate  what  I  had  naturally. 
It  seems  as  though  I  was  like  a  tree  or  shrub  in  the 
woods.  I  was  shut  out  from  the  light  ;  I  had  no  cult- 
ure ;  I  grew  without  any  direction  or  assistance."  In 
writing  of  the  "good  old  times,"  Mr.  Giles  once  said, — 

"They  were  good  times  in  many  essential  respects.  The  people 
were  industrious,  frugal,  and  in  the  most  important  affairs  of  life 
they  were  intelligent.  If  they  did  not  read  so  much  as  we  do,  they 
thought  more.  They  did  not  depend  so  much  upon  others  to  do 
their  thinking.  They  were  more  self  reliant.  Their  means  of  social 
culture  were  limited,  but  they  made  the  best  use  of  those  they  pos- 
sessed.   If  they  endured  many  liardships,  they  acquired  strength  by 


8  PJWGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


them,  and  in  the  struggle  for  Ijfe  they  gained  many  of  its  blessings, 
and  learned  how  to  appreciate  them." 

Mr.  Giles  once  referred  to  these  early  days  in  remarks 
made  in  the  Argyle  Square  church  in  London,  and  said 
tliat  from  his  earliest  recollection  he  had  desired  to  be  a 
minister,  but  the  idea  seemed  so  improbable  and  absurd 
that  he  said  little  of  it.  His  father  once  spoke  to  him  of 
a  situation  as  a  clerk  in  a  store,  but  he  declined  it  because 
he  did  not  want  to  be  a  merchant.  A  little  later  than 
this,  when  he  was  at  home  on  a  vacation  from  Bennington, 
where  he  was  attending  the  academy,  his  father  asked  him 
what  he  intended  to  do  for  a  living  when  he  had  finished 
school.  The  young  man  asked,  ' '  What  do  you  want  me 
to  do?"  His  father  said,  "I  would  like  to  have  you 
study  law."  After  a  few  moments'  silence  he  replied, 
with  a  look  full  of  haj)piness  and  .satisfaction,  "Well, 
if  I  study  law,  it  must  be  the  law  of  God."  This  deter- 
mination did  not  leave  him,  though  for  many  years 
its  realization  was  deferred  till  he  was  led  to  those  doc- 
trines of  light  and  comfort  whicli  the  Lord  desired  him 
to  preach. 

The  education  begun  at  home  under  the  father's  care 
was  continued  at  a  "  select  school"  near  by.  Some  time 
also  was  spent  with  a  clergyman  of  the  neighborhood, 
who  gave  what  instruction  he  could  in  return  for  work 
upon  his  i)lace.  It  was  a  happy  day  to  the  young  man 
eager  for  education,  when  the  opportunity  offered  to  leave 
his  labor  in  the  field,  to  attend  the  Mt.  Anthony  Academy 
in  Bennington,  not  far  away  across  tiie  Vermont  line. 
About  this  time  he  showed  his  power  of  aj)plication  by 
mastering  the  Latin  grammar  in  nine  days.    It  is  .said  of 


CHAUXCEY  Gir.F.S. 


9 


him  as  a  young'  man  that  "when  he  was  engaged  in  study 
he  was  obhvious  of  everything-  about  him."  At  the 
academy  Mr.  Giles  came  under  one  whom  he  regarded 
as  a  real  teacher.  He  did  more  than  impart  a  knowledge 
of  Greek,  which  was  his  subject ;  he  showed  how  to  study 
and  made  study  delightful.  At  Bennington  Mr.  Giles 
prepared  for  Williams  College,  at  Williamstown,  near  by 
among-  the  Berkshire  Hills,  and  entered  as  a  member  of 
the  class  of  1836.  He  was  now  nineteen  years  old.  The 
question  of  support  was  still  a  serious  one,  and  he  met  his 
necessary  expenses  chiefly  by  teaching  in  the  intervals  of 
college  work.  Mr.  Giles  remained  with  his  class  till  the 
middle  of  the  junior  year,  when  his  health  failed — his 
eyes  especially  were  much  affected — and  he  was  unable 
to  continue  the  double  labor  of  studying  and  teaching. 
This  illness  was,  I  believe,  due  to  an  incident  of  one  of 
the  college  vacations.  He  was  at  home  in  the  hay-field, 
and  the  other  mowers  were  crowding  him  in  his  mowing, 
thinking  they  would  "take  down  this  college  youth  a  peg 
or  two."  It  was  a  very  hot  day,  and,  having  worked  till 
he  was  exhausted,  he  drank  from  an  ice-cold  spring. 
Trouble  in  his  head  resulted,  which  for  years  caused  much 
suffering  and  interfered  seriously  with  his  work.  This 
was  probably  the  origin  of  a  singing  or  roaring  in  the 
head  from  which  he  was  never  wholly  relieved,  and  which 
at  times  gave  great  annoyance. 

Mr.  Giles  received  the  degrees  of  A.B.  and  M.A.  from 
Williams  College  in  1876,  although  he  never  finished  the 
college  course.  In  1886  he  was  present  at  the  reunion 
of  his  class  on  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  its  graduation. 
In  college  Mr.  Giles  is  remembered  by  classmates  as 


PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


"more  than  an  average  scholar,  not  brilliant,  perhaps, 
bvit  studious,  prompt,  and  accurate.  He  was  a  good 
declaimer,  and  in  the  debating  society  was  alert  and  one 
of  the  best  speakers.  He  was  strong  on  temj^erance 
and  on  the  anti-slavery  question,  which  was  much  dis- 
cussed in  those  days.  In  manner  he  was  rather  retiring, 
somewhat  shy,  friendly  with  all  but  familiar  with  only  a 
few."  It  is  a  fact  that  from  boyhood  throughout  his  life 
Mr.  Giles  shrank  from  meeting  strangers,  and  only  with 
great  effort  went  into  company. 

The  interruption  of  the  college  course  was  a  great 
disappointment  to  Mr.  Giles.  His  desire  to  be  a  minis- 
ter was  the  motix  e  of  his  study  ;  and  now  as  he  was 
about  to  enter  on  his  chosen  work  he  was  compelled  to 
stop  his  preparation  and  give  his  strength  to  teaching. 
But  in  after-years  he  saw  the  Lord's  providence  in  this 
disappointment,  for  it  prevented  his  confirming  himself 
in  the  doctrines  of  the  Congregational  Church,  which 
were  all  that  he  then  knew,  and  kept  his  mind  open  to 
receive  and  teach  the  truths  of  tlie  New  Church. 

After  leaving  college  Mr.  Giles  was  again  in  Benning- 
ton, a  teacher  in  the  academy  where  he  had  received  his 
own  preparation.  At  this  time  religious  subjects  were 
nuich  in  his  mind.  "He  was  struggling  with  the  hard 
dogmas  of  the  church,"  says  one  who  was  closely  asso- 
ciated with  him  as  a  fellow-teacher,  "  and  was  at  times  in 
a  sceptical  mood,  and  more  than  a  mood.  He  was  very 
conscientious  and  his  mental  sufferings  were  great,  and 
that  for  years."  Probably  states  of  mind  were  now  be- 
ginning of  which  Mr.  Giles  himself  speaks  in  his  little 
book,  "Why  I  am  a  New-Churchman."    He  could  not 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


II 


believe  the  doctrines  commonly  taught  concerning  heaven 
and  hell  and  an  arbitrary  judgment. 
He  writes, — 

"  Doubts  haviiij;  been  raised  about  the  truth  of  one  doctrine,  they 
led  to  the  examination  of  other  doctrines  and  doubts  about  their 
truth.  I  did  not  doubt  because  I  desired  to  do  so.  On  the  con- 
trary, I  clung  to  every  point  of  the  old  faith  with  the  greatest 
tenacity.  I  clung  like  a  drowning  man  to  the  last  plank,  until  I  was 
torn  from  it,  or  it  failed  me,  and  I  sunk  into  the  depths  of  despair. 
I  have  no  language  that  is  adequate  to  express  the  darkness  and 
horror  and  agony  of  the  state  I  lived  in,  if  it  could  be  called  living, 
for  years.  One  hope  alone  sustained  me.  I  did  not  doubt  the  exist- 
ence, the  wisdom,  and  goodness  of  God.  ...  I  settled  down  to  the 
duties  and  necessities  of  life  with  the  purpose  of  faithfully  doing  my 
work  and  awaiting  whatever  the  future  might  have  in  store  for  me." 

A  season  of  feeble  health  and  of  rapid  changes  followed, 
when  Mr.  Giles  travelled  some  and  taught  schools  for  a 
short  time  in  several  different  places.  He  was  for  a  while 
a  teacher  at  West  Hampton,  Mass.  Afterwards  he  taught 
in  Fishkill  on  the  Hudson.  He  visited  Philadelphia,  and 
spent  a  winter  in  Middletown,  Pa.,  on  the  Susquehanna 
River.  He  was  at  this  time  drifting  with  no  definite  aim, 
and  his  movements  were  influenced  by  a  seemingly  very 
trifling  thing.  It  was  in  after-years  a  striking  example  to 
Mr.  Giles  of  the  Lord's  use  of  the  smallest  means  to  give 
direction  to  our  whole  life.  When  a  mere  school-boy 
studying  his  geography  he  had  been  attracted  by  a  de- 
scription of  Tennessee,  and  made  up  his  mind  that  some 
day  he  would  visit  that  State.  It  so  happened  that  he 
never  saw  Tennessee,  but  for  years  the  purpose  was  in 
his  mind,  and  more  than  once  influenced  his  movements. 

From  Middletown  Mr.  Giles  journeyed  through  Penn- 


PROGRESS  I.y  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


sylvania  and  New  York,  by  the  slow  means  of  travel 
which  existed  before  the  days  of  railroads,  with  the  inten- 
tion of  going  to  Michigan,  and  then  visiting  Tennessee. 
He  was  moving  westward  on  the  Erie  Canal.  The 
weather  was  rainy  and  unpleasant  and  the  company  on 
the  canal-boat  disagreeable,  and  he  yielded  to  the  sugges- 
tion of  a  fellow-traveller  to  stop  o\  er  for  a  day  at  Palmyra. 
At  the  hotel  where  he  lodged  he  saw  in  a  newspaper  an 
advertisement  for  a  teacher.  He  applied  for  the  position, 
found  friends  as  if  by  accident,  and  was  soon  settled  as 
principal  of  the  Palmyra  Academy,  an  institution  which 
ranked  high  among  the  schools  of  the  State.  In  Palmyra 
Mr.  Giles  met  the  one  who  became  his  wife  and  his  faith- 
ful companion  in  the  trials  and  successes  of  his  life.  He 
used  to  speak  pleasantly  of  his  great  indebtedness  to  a 
rainy  day,  but  he  spoke  reverently,  for  he  saw  in  it  the 
hand  of  Providence. 

Mr.  Giles  had  been  in  charge  of  the  Palmyra  Academy 
hardly  more  than  a  year  when  he  accepted  a  more  re- 
munerative but  more  laborious  position  in  the  Collegiate 
Institute  in  Rochester,  N.  Y.  This  position  he  held  only 
a  year,  and  in  May,  1840,  he  was  again  in  Palmyra, 
teaching  a  "  select  school."  But  in  October  of  the  same 
year,  suffering  much  with  his  head  and  dissatisfied  with 
the  success  of  his  .school,  he  went  to  Cincinnati.  The 
intention  of  visiting  Tennes.see,  formed  as  a  boy,  was  not 
forgotten.  While  in  Cincinnati,  he  one  day  packed  his 
bag  and  was  going  down  the  .stairs  to  take  the  steamboat 
for  Nashville,  when  he  was  stopped  by  a  stranger  who  was 
looking  for  a  teacher  to  open  a  school  in  Hamilton,  Ohio, 
a  town  some  twenty-five  miles  north  of  Cincinnati.  Mr. 


CIIAUNCEY  GILES. 


13 


Giles  was  persuaded  to  postpone  the  trip  to  Tennessee, 
and  the  end  of  November  found  him  settled  in  a  new 
home.  It  seemed  again  a  mere  chance  which  brought 
him  to  Hamilton,  but  it  was  there  that  he  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church. 

The  pages  of  journal  written  in  Rochester  and  Palmyra 
and  during  the  first  years  in  Hamilton  show  states  of 
mind  which  are  a  surprise  to  those  who  have  known  Mr. 
Giles  only  since  the  truths  of  the  New  Church  became 
his  constant  encouragement  and  delight.  He  was  op- 
pressed with  a  sense  that  he  was  accomplishing  nothing. 
He  was  conscious  of  abilities,  and  was  desirous,  perhaps 
ambitious,  to  make  them  influential  ;  but  he  seemed  to 
himself  to  make  no  progress  from  year  to  year.  His 
discouragement  was  in  part  due  to  feeble  health,  for  dur- 
ing these  years  he  suffered  almost  constantly  from  head- 
ache, which  at  times  made  work  impossible.  It  is  plain 
also  that  his  depression  was  somewhat  morbid.  He 
underrated  the  value  of  his  work  as  a  teacher,  and  was 
oppressed  with  a  sense  of  failure  where  others  saw  useful- 
ness and  success.  The  contrast  of  such  gloomy,  despond- 
ent states,  which  were  natural  to  Mr.  Giles,  with  the 
hopeful  confidence  which  has  been  so  characteristic  of  the 
latter  half  of  his  life,  shows  what  the  New  Church  was  to 
him,  and  goes  far  to  explain  his  intense  desire  to  spread 
its  light  to  others.  At  that  time  he  knew  nothing  of 
Swedenborg  and  his  writings,  but  we  find  him  reading 
Carlisle  and  Coleridge  with  some  satisfaction.  Though 
fully  occupied  in  his  schools  and  with  no  expectation  of 
ever  being  anything  but  a  teacher,  his  thoughts  dwelt 
often  on  religious  subjects,  and  his  old  fondness  for  the 

2 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


profession  of  a  minister  appears  in  the  interest  with  which 
he  listened  to  various  preachers,  and  in  the  extended 
criticisms  of  their  sermons  and  deUvery  which  he  entered 
in  his  journal.  He  would  observe  the  effect  of  a  speaker 
upon  the  audience  and  the  cause  of  his  success  or  failure. 
Self-consciousness  in  a  speaker  and  any  appearance  of 
study  for  effect  were  elements  of  weakness.  To  him  an 
unassuming  modesty,  made  earnest  by  sincere  conviction, 
was  the  truest  eloquence,  and  if  art  were  used,  the  audi- 
ence at  least  must  be  unconscious  of  it. 

But  there  were  still  ten  years  of  teaching  before  Mr. 
Giles  became  himself  a  minister.  These  were,  in  a  double 
sense,  years  of  preparation,  for  the  methods  of  instruction 
and  of  gentle  control  which  he  employed  in  school  were 
what  were  needed  in  the  church,  and  at  the  same  time 
tlie  doctrines  of  the  New  Cliurch  were  brought  to  his 
notice  and  gained  a  stronger  and  stronger  hold  upon  his 
undenstanding  and  his  affections. 

Mr.  Giles  began  his  charge  of  the  Hamilton  and  Ross- 
ville  Female  Academy  in  December,  1840,  and  continued 
it  till  the  summer  of  1845.  In  August,  following  his 
settlement  in  Hamilton,  he  revisited  Palmyra,  where  he 
was  married  on  the  8th  of  September  to  Eunice  Lakey. 
Her  parents,  many  years  before,  had  come  to  western 
New  York  from  Franklin  County,  Mass.,  where  also  was 
Charlemont,  Mr.  Giles's  native  town.  It  would  be 
pleasant  to  write  of  Mrs.  Giles  and  of  the  cjualities  which 
have  endeared  her  to  her  many  friends.  In  writing  of 
Mr.  Giles  from  this  time,  we  write  of  both,  for  they  were 
united  in  all  that  we  describe.  In  1891  their  Golden 
Wedding  was  celebrated,  and  in  the  same  year  Mr.  Giles 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


wrote  of  his  companion  of  fifty  years,  "She  is  and  has 
been  a  good,  faithful,  and  devoted  wife.  If  I  have  gained 
any  success  and  been  of  any  use  in  the  world,  it  is  due  to 
her  as  much  as  to  myself." 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Giles  took  their  journey  from  Palmyra 
by  the  best  means  of  travel  which  then  existed,  the  canal 
from  Rochester  to  Buffalo,  steamboat  to  Cleveland,  and 
from  there  the  stage,  day  and  night,  to  Hamilton,  in  all 
a  journey  of  a  week.  The  winter  climate  of  southern 
Ohio  in  those  days  was  soft  and  mild,  a  pleasant  contrast 
to  the  harsh  winds  of  western  New  York.  But  Hamilton 
was  unhealthy.  It  lay  on  the  low  banks  of  the  Great 
Miami  River.  There  was  a  large  basin  of  standing  water 
for  the  supply  of  a  canal,  and  when  afterwards  water  was 
taken  from  the  river  for  power,  the  air  was  poisoned  with 
miasms  from  the  old  river-bed.  Sickness  was  very  prev- 
alent, especially  the  ague.  For  a  long  time  after  going 
to  Hamilton  Mrs.  Giles  was  very  ill,  and  before  they 
moved  from  the  town  Mr.  Giles  was  brought  to  death's 
door  by  a  congestive  fever.  But  in  spite  of  their  trials 
the  years  in  Hamilton  were  remembered  with  deep  grati- 
tude. 

What  a  contrast  it  was  to  their  first  journey  West, 
when  fifty-one  years  later  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Giles  took  train 
in  Philadelphia  to  attend  the  New-Church  Convention  in 
Cincinnati !  We  quote  Mr.  Giles's  description  to  illustrate 
both  the  natural  and  the  spiritual  development  of  fifty 
years  : 

"  The  train  left  at  4.25  p.m.  The  day  was  cool  and  bright.  The 
car  ran  so  smoothly  that  it  seemed  to  be  at  rest  almost.  The 
country  is  looking  very  beautiful.  The  apple-trees  are  in  their  glory. 


i6       PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


As  we  rushed  past  them  tliey  seemed  to  spring  out  of  the  earth  in 
the  beauty  and  glory  of  their  wedding  robes.  The  earth  and  the  sky 
were  glorious  in  the  smile  of  the  Lord.  How  beautiful  the  earth  is  ! 
What  variety  of  color  and  form  !  Surely,  we  ought  to  see  the  Lord's 
wisdom  in  everything.  How  much  it  would  add  to  the  interest  of 
everything  around  us  if  we  regarded  it  as  the  Lord's  work  to-day, 
as  His  gift  to  us,  as  a  token  of  His  love  for  us  !  It  would  give  a  new 
and  charming  significance  to  everything  if  we  could  see  His  love  in 
all  the  means  He  has  provided  for  our  happiness.  The  ride  through 
the  heart  of  Ohio  was  beautiful,  very  beautiful,  and  I  enjoyed  it, 
every  minute  of  it.  As  we  passed  Zenia  and  Morrow  and  other 
places,  many  old  associations,  some  sweet,  some  bitter,  were  revived. 
How  wonderfully  the  Lord  has  led  me  !  How  little  I  dreamed  w-hat 
He  had  in  store  for  me  when  I  was  working  my  way  along  by  teach- 
ing school !    Truly,  He  leads  us  by  a  way  we  know  not." 

In  the  spring  of  1843,  Mr.  Giles's  father  and  mother 
and  sisters  came  to  Hamilton  from  Massachusetts.  His 
father  died  there  the  following  year.  Two  of  the  sisters 
afterwards  removed  to  Decatur,  111.,  and  their  mother 
made  her  home  with  them  until  her  death  at  the  age  of 
ninety-two. 

We  are  given  a  pleasant  glimpse  of  Mr.  Giles's  school, 
and  of  Mr.  Giles  as  a  teacher,  by  one  who  joined  him  as 
assistant  when  he  had  been  two  years  in  Hamilton. 

She  writes, — 

"  The  first  thing  I  observed  in  his  school  was  the  perfectly  good 
understanding  apparent  between  teacher  and  pujiils,  and  the  cour- 
tesy and  kindness  manifested  in  their  intercourse  with  each  and  all. 
It  resembled  tiie  home-life  in  a  well-trained  family,  I  thought.  Then 
my  attention  was  called  to  a  wonderful  clock  which  was  said  to 
govern  the  school.  A  doul)le  stroke  sounded  two  and  a  half  minutes 
before  the  hour  or  luilf  hour.  The  children  knew  that  they  had 
liberty  to  speak  quietly  if  they  wished  to,  and  the  classes  took  tlu'ir 
places  for  the  ne.xt  recitation  of  their  own  accord.  Another  double 
stroke  announced  the  hour,  and  all  was  still  again.    Mr.  Giles's 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


17 


teaching  was  noticeable  for  its  thoroughness.  His  object  seemed  to 
be  to  cultivate  a  love  of  knowledge,  to  form  a  habit  of  acquiring  it ; 
and  at  the  same  time  he  tried  to  make  it  practical  in  every  possible 
way.  He  sought  to  develop  the  mind  and  character  in  a  natural  and 
orderly  manner,  instead  of  forcing  and  cramming  for  display  or 
present  results.  To  illustrate :  In  teaching  a  class  of  beginners  in 
arithmetic,  he  kept  them  practising  notation  and  numeration  until 
they  each  and  all  could  write  and  read  numbers  with  the  greatest 
ease  and  correctness.  Meantime,  to  keep  up  the  interest,  the  e.xer- 
cises  were  varied  by  some  e.vamples  in  addition  or  by  learning  the 
tables,  etc.  They  practised  on  each  one  of  the  ground  rules  in  the 
same  way  until  they  could  add  and  subtract,  multiply  and  divide, 
as  fast  as  they  could  see  the  figures.  As  there  are  not  examples 
enough  given  in  any  arithmetic  to  cultivate  such  facility,  examples 
were  improvised  or  taken  from  other  books. 

"  By  this  time  the  multiplication  tables  and  the  other  tables  were 
as  familiar  to  the  children  as  A,  B,  C.  They  take  pride  in  buying  and 
selling  wood  and  coal,  building  and  furnishing  houses,  making  dry- 
goods  and  mantua-makers'  bills  and  settling  them,  all  of  which  they 
find  interesting  and  rather  amusing  exercises  ;  and  incidentally  the 
idea  enters  their  minds  that  this  study  may  be  of  some  use  to  them 
in  the  future.  Of  course  it  takes  time  to  go  through  the  arithmetic 
in  this  way,  but  it  was  never  necessary  to  go  through  a  second  time, 
and  as  they  were  not  hurried  on  from  one  thing  to  another  before 
becoming  perfectly  familiar  with  it,  they  found  the  study  easy  and 
delightful,  instead  of  hard  and  disagreeable.  And  they  were  thor- 
oughly equipped  for  the  higher  mathematics,  both  by  their  habits  of 
study  and  the  amount  of  knowledge  already  acquired. 

"  The  classes  in  natural  sciences  were  encouraged  in  the  study  of 
principles  presenting  themselves  in  ordinary  life.  The  children  be- 
came enthusiastic  in  studying  out  the  mechanical  principles  involved 
in  the  ordinary  implements  used  in  their  homes  and  the  streets,  and 
the  chemical  changes  taking  place  under  their  own  eyes. 

"  The  idea  that  a  school-book  ever  exhausted  a  subject  was  never 
tolerated,  or  that  of  finishing  one's  education  on  leaving  school. 
The  school  course  was  looked  upon  as  only  the  introduction  to  an 
education, — a  learning  how  to  learn.  If  the  taste  for  knowledge  has 
been  quickened  and  develojjed  in  the  school,  and  habits  of  acquiring 
b  2* 


i8 


PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


it  are  formed  there,  the  bushiess  of  education  is  merely  well  begun. 
Mr.  Giles's  methods  of  teaching  were,  perhaps,  better  adapted  to 
the  development  of  a  well-rounded,  harmonious  character  than  to 
e.vtraordinary  acquirement  in  any  one  direction. 

"  His  schools  were  the  most  perfect  specimens  of  true  democracy 
I  was  ever  brought  in  contact  with.  The  only  distinction  recognized 
seemed  to  be  moral  worth.  So  far  as  one  could  see,  all  were  on  a 
perfect  equality.  The  efforts  of  the  teacher  and  his  interest  in  their 
individual  progress  were  unwearied.  His  patience  was  not  exhausted 
by  the  dullest,  nor  were  his  interest  and  pride  centred  upon  the 
gifted.  All  he  asked  was  that  each  should  try  to  improve  and  do 
the  best  he  could.  You  could  never  guess  who  were  the  children  of 
rich  or  influential  patrons.  Some  of  the  children  of  one  of  the  rival 
churches  in  town,  it  is  said,  were  once  upon  a  time  told  by  their 
parents  to  notice  and  see  if  the  teacher  were  not  partial  to  so  and 
so's  children  of  the  other  church.  In  a  few  days  the  children  re- 
ported that  they  had  watched  carefully  and  did  not  see  any  par- 
tiality. It  seems  quite  surprising,  under  the  circumstances,  that  tiie 
children  should  recognize  Mr.  Giles's  sense  of  justice. 

"In  the  primary  department  Mr.  Giles  did  not  insist  upon  the 
little  ones  silting  up  straight  and  still  by  the  hour,  neither  did  he 
e.xpect  them  to  give  their  attention  to  any  particular  subject  more 
than  a  few  minutes  at  a  time.  Their  lessons  were  very  short  and 
rehearsals  frequent,  and  their  slate  and  pencil  were  always  at  hand 
ready  for  use  ;  and  they  did  use  them  a  great  deal.  There  were 
generally  on  one  of  the  black-boards  some  of  the  capital  letters 
written,  or  some  simple  drawing  easily  imitated,  a  cuj),  slate,  or 
book,  which  they  might  copy  if  they  chose.  They  had  learned  a 
variety  of  pretty  little  songs  for  children  which  they  delighted  in 
singing,  and  singing  and  marching  were  much  relied  upon  to  relieve 
the  little  ones  of  the  weariness  of  long  sitting.  Mr.  Giles's  sister 
Caroline  had  charge  of  this  department  for  a  time  in  Hamilton. 
To  see  her  with  her  fine  voice  leading  the  children's  voices  in  their 
marching  music  was  something  one  would  not  willingly  forget. 
The  children  were  as  happy  as  birds,  and  as  musical.  One  of  the 
mothers  remarked  that  she  did  not  know  but  it  was  e.xtravagant  to 
send  all  of  her  children  to  Mr.  Giles,  but  when  she  saw  the  little 
ones  so  happy  she  felt  she  could  well  afford  the  extra  expense. 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


19 


'Why,'  she  added,  '  tliey  sing  themselves  to  sleep  every  night  and 
awake  in  the  morning  singing,  and  liuring  the  day  it  must  be  a  seri- 
ous discomfort  that  a  song  will  not  dispel.'  " 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Giles,  when  they  came  to  Hamilton  after 
their  marriage,  boarded  with  a  Mr.  Garrison,  a  tailor. 
Mr.  Garrison  was  a  New-Churchman  and  he  lent  them  a 
book  of  Swedenborg's.  It  was  "  Conjugial  Love."  As 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Giles  sat  talking  in  their  room  one  evening 
the  book  lay  on  the  table,  and  as  he  spoke  Mr.  Giles 
carelessly  turned  the  leaves.  He  glanced  down  at  the 
book  and  his  eye  fell  upon  the  word  ' '  heaven' '  in  one  of 
the  "Memorable  Relations."  He  read  a  few  Hnes  to 
see  what  the  author  had  to  say  of  heaven.  The  conver- 
sation paused  as  he  read  on,  and  when  he  closed  the  book 
it  was  with  the  remark  that  if  the  crazy  man  had  written 
nothing  worse  than  that  they  must  have  slandered  him. 
Mr.  Giles  has  often  referred  to  the  act  of  the  tailor  in 
handing  him  this  book  as  the  greatest  service  ever  ren- 
dered him  by  any  man,  and  has  used  it  to  encourage 
others  to  do  like  services. 

This  beginning  of  interest  in  the  doctrines  of  the  New 
Church  was  in  the  latter  part  of  the  year  1841.  The  first 
mention  of  Swedenborg  in  Mr.  Giles's  journal  is  Decem- 
ber 31,  1843,  when  he  writes,-^ 

"If  there  is  anything  in  the  history  of  the  past  year  worthy  of 
notice,  it  is  that  I  have  become  interested  in  the  writings  of  Sweden- 
borg. They  have  opened  new  views  of  life  to  jne.  The  world  wears 
a  new  face.  If  they  are  true  or  false,  they  will  exert  a  most  impor- 
tant influence  upon  my  life." 

The  next  day  he  adds, — 

"  If  I  mistake  not,  the  new  ideas  of  life  which  I  have  obtained 
from  the  New-Church  works  will  assist  me  much  in  overcoming 


20       PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


many  defects  in  my  character.  I  think  they  will  give  me  new 
strength  of  purpose,  and  perhaps  in  time  enable  me  to  overcome 
and  correct  some  original  deficiencies  in  my  nature.  I  must  set  my- 
self seriously  at  work,  and  though  I  put  no  confidence  in  myself,  yet 
there  is  One  who  has  strength,  and  who  is  ever  willing  to  impan  to 
others  if  they  are  willing  to  receive  it.  ...  I  think  the  idea  that  a 
kind  Providence  watches  over  us  and  directs  all  things  for  our  good 
— an  idea  which  has  now  become  a  part  of  my  life — will  do  much  to 
strengtiien  me  in  remedying  some  of  the  greatest  defects  in  my 
character." 

We  see  the  practical  nature  of  Mr.  Giles's  interest  in 
the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  from  the  first.  They 
attracted  him  because  they  promised  to  give  help  to 
overcome  his  faults  and  to  lead  a  truer  life. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Prescott,  or  Prescott  Hiller  as  he  was 
afterwards  called,  was  the  minister  of  the  New-Church 
Society  in  Cincinnati  in  those  days.  Mr.  Giles  heard  him 
sometimes  when  in  Cincinnati,  and  Mr.  Prescott  preached 
in  Hamilton  occasionally.  Both  being  cultivated  men 
and  interested  in  education,  they  became  warmly  attached 
to  each  other.  A  letter  of  Mr.  Prescott' s  is  preserved, 
dated  May  ii,  1843,  in  which  he  says,  referring  to  a  visit 
to  Hamilton, — 

"  There  was  a  gentleman  there  who  interested  me  still  more  than 
the  others.  He  is  a  Mr.  Giles,  a  teacher,  formerly  from  Massachu- 
setts. I  have  been  introduced  to  him  and  already  feel  well  ac- 
quainted with  him.  He  is  an  uncommonly  fine  man,  one  after  your 
own  heart  on  the  subject  of  teaching.  He  is  devoted  to  it,  and 
means  to  make  it  his  profession.  He  keeps  an  academy  here,  and 
the  best  school  in  town.  I  visited  the  institution  and  was  charmed 
with  his  manner  of  teaching  and  governing.  I  am  sure  you  would 
be  pleased  with  his  acquaintance.  I  have  had  a  great  deal  of  con- 
versation with  him.  He  is  already  half  a  New-Churchman  in  his 
views.   He  has  also  read  a  little— part  of  the  '  Divine  Love  and  Wis- 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


21 


dom' — and  is  much  pleased  with  what  he  has  read.  He  is  now  read- 
ing '  Heaven  and  Hell.'  I  think  lie  must  become  a  New-Cluirchman 
in  time." 

On  the  other  hand  we  find  appreciative  mention  of  Mr. 
Prescott  in  Mr.  Giles's  journal.  He  speaks  of  seeing 
Mr.  Prescott  in  Cincinnati,  and  hearing  him  preach  from 
"  the  Parable  of  the  Sower."  "  His  sermon  was  a  very- 
good  and  profitable  one."  Later,  when  living  in  Leb- 
anon, Mr.  Giles  writes, — 

"  Mr.  Prescott  came  to  town  and  has  preached  several  discourses 
on  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church.  It  is  cheering  and  comforting 
to  hear  him.  I  always  gain  new  strength  every  time  I  have  an 
opportunity  of  hearing  him,  and  when  he  goes  away  I  feel  refreshed 
and  can  enter  upon  the  duties  of  life  with  new  vigor." 

Hamilton  is  the  place  which  Mr.  W.  D.  Hovvells  has  so 
picturesquely  described  in  "A  Boy's  Town."  Mr.  How- 
ells's  father  was  one  of  the  few  New-Churchmen  in  Hamil- 
ton, and  for  a  time  he  used  to  meet  regularly  with  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Giles  in  their  rooms  on  Sunday  for  a  simple 
service.  Occasionally  one  or  another  was  in  town  who 
joined  in  the  worship  ;  but  those  were  days  of  small 
meetings,  when  four  was  a  large  congregation,  and  five 
was  a  crowded  house. 

While  in  Hamilton  a  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  with 
teaching  as  a  permanent  profession  was  working  in  Mr. 
Giles's  mind,  and  in  the  spring  of  1844,  when  he  was 
thirty-one  years  old,  he  yielded  to  the  advice  of  friends 
and  began  to  study  law,  still  continuing  his  school.  This 
was  a  line  of  .study  which,  if  it  had  been  continued,  would 
have  led  Mr.  Giles  away  from  his  real  life  work,  and  he 
afterwards  saw  the  hand  of  Providence  in  the  family  cares 
and  the  illness  which  cut  short  the  study  of  law  after  a 


PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


few  weeks,  and  turned  his  attention  more  deeply  to  the 
new  spiritual  truths.  ' '  I  have  been  reading  some  of  the 
New-Church  doctrines  lately,"  he  writes  in  October, 
1844,  "and  if  I  have  health  this  winter,  I  think  I  shall 
investigate  them  more  fully  than  I  have  yet  done." 

Mr.  Giles  speaks,  in  "  Why  I  am  a  New-Churchman," 
of  the  increasing  light  as  he  continued  his  study  : 

"  In  this  state  of  darkness  and  negation  the  doctrines  of  the  New 
Church  found  me,  as  it  seemed  to  me  then,  by  the  merest  accident, 
but  as  I  have  since  learned  to  know  and  believe,  by  the  providence 
and  infinite  mercy  of  the  Lord.  They  came  at  first  as  a  ray  of  light 
which  excited  interest  and  attention.  Whether  it  was  a  solitar\-  ray 
that  gave  a  little  light  on  one  special  subject  and  was  limited  to  that, 
or  a  star  that  was  to  usher  ni  a  new  morning  and  a  new  day,  I  did 
not  know.  But  it  was  precious  in  itself,  and  I  rejoiced  in  it.  .  .  .  It 
was  not  a  solitary  ray.  It  came  from  a  central  sun.  Special  truths 
harmonized  and  threw  light  upon  one  another.  Each  one  was  seen 
to  be  a  part  of  a  rational  and  ordered  system.  Confidence  was 
increased  and  the  way  of  progress  became  assured.  Mysteries  with 
regard  to  man's  spiritual  nature,  which  had  been  involved  in  impene- 
trable darkness  began  to  give  up  their  secrets.  Problems  which  I 
had  supposed  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  the  human  mind  to  solve 
began  to  yield  to  the  power  of  the  new  truths  and  assume  rational 
forms.  The  darkness  that  brooded  over  the  chaos  of  conflicting 
opinions  was  gradually  dispersed,  the  illusions  and  fallacious  appear- 
ances with  which  the  natural  mind  invests  and  perverts  the  form  and 
nature  of  spiritual  truth  were  gradually  dispelled.  I  could  truly  say, 
'  Whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I  see.'  " 

Mr.  Giles  writes  in  his  journal, — 

"  I  do  not  regret  coming  to  Hamilton,  though  my  lot  has  been  one 
of  suffering  must  of  the  time  since  I  came  here  ;  sickness  and  I  know 
not  what  has  laid  me  low  and  kept  me  so,  but  I  have  become  ac- 
quainted with  the  New-Church  doctrines,  and  I  think  I  have  found 
in  them  what  will  be  of  more  value  to  me  than  physical  health  or 
wealth." 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


23 


Lebanon  was  a  town  of  about  the  size  of  Hamilton,  in 
an  adjoining  county.  "  It  was  a  charming  town,  which 
from  early  times  had  always  enjoyed  an  enviable  reputa- 
tion for  the  intellect  and  cultivation  of  its  people."  A 
new  academy  had  been  built  in  Lebanon,  and  they  were 
looking  for  a  principal.  It  was  suggested  to  Mr.  Giles  to 
apply  for  the  position,  but  he  was  in  feeble  health  and 
disheartened.  He  always  remembered  with  gratitude  the 
encouragement  received  at  this  time  from  one  of  his  early 
New-Church  friends.  "Go,"  Mr.  Ross  said,  "  and  you 
will  get  it. "  "  Why  do  you  say  I  shall  get  it  ?"  "  You 
will  get  it  because  you  have  some  ability  as  a  teacher, 
and  you  want  to  be  useful  ;  and  when  a  man  wants  to  be 
useful,  the  Lord  opens  the  way  for  him."  Thus  encour- 
aged, he  applied,  and,  although  the  competition  was  sharp, 
he  got  the  position  and  opened  the  school  in  Lebanon 
September  i,  1845,  continuing  in  charge  till  January, 
1848. 

Very  pleasant  memories  of  this  school  linger  in  the 
minds  of  many  who  there  came  under  Mr.  Giles's  care. 
One  of  his  pupils  speaks  most  affectionately  of  Mr.  Giles, 
and  says,  ' '  Lebanon  has  never  had  a  teacher  so  accom- 
plished as  he,  nor  one  whose  memory  is  so  warmly 
cherished."  The  same  friend  tells  an  interesting  inci- 
dent. The  academy  was  new,  and  the  grounds  nearly 
bare  of  trees.  The  first  spring  after  going  to  Lebanon, 
Mr.  Giles  one  day  took  the  boys  to  the  woods,  with  a 
large  wagon  and  picks  and  spades.  There  was  much  fun 
among  the  boys  as  each  took  up  a  tree  and  planted  it  on 
the  academy  grounds  under  Mr.  Giles's  direction.  As 
the  planting  was  going  on,  Mr.  Giles  suggested  that 


PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITLAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


some  day  they  might  come  with  their  children  and  sit 
under  the  shade  of  their  trees.  They  were  a  bright, 
ambitious,  studious  set  of  schohu's,  and  many  of  them 
have  since  held  positions  of  trust  and  influence.  One  at 
least,  in  fulfilment  of  Mr.  Giles's  prophecy,  has  taken  his 
son  to  the  scene  of  his  own  school-days,  and  sat  with  him 
in  the  shade  of  the  tree  which  he  planted. 

In  Lebanon  the  school  was  large  from  the  beginning, 
and  the  duties  were  exacting.  The  same  friend  who  has 
given  us  the  glimpse  of  the  school  at  Hamilton  was  still 
associated  with  Mr.  Giles,  and  tells  us  of  the  wise  and 
pleasant  ways  in  which  he  awakened  a  love  of  learning, 
and  developed  the  character  of  the  young  people  under 
his  care.  He  organized  a  club  which  met  in  the  long 
winter  evenings  and  served  a  good  use  in  the  days  when 
books  were  less  common  than  now,  in  awakening  an 
interest  in  historical  and  literary  subjects.  Music  was  an 
important  feature  of  the  meetings,  as  it  was  of  the  school 
exercises.  Mr.  Giles  had  a  happy  way  of  overcoming 
the  difficulties  of  writing  compositions  by  asking  the 
children  to  write  descriptions  of  familiar  and  interesting 
things.  Their  exercises  were  sometimes  given  the  form 
of  letters  to  real  or  imaginary  people. 

"  The  school  ilay  always  began  with  devotional  exercises,  reading 
from  the  Word,  music,  and  prayer,  which  was  often  followed  by  what 
was  called  a  little  morning  talk,  which  never  occupied  more  than  five 
minutes  and  seldom  more  than  two.  A  jiractical  suggestion  was 
olTered,  current  events  alluded  to,  or  the  effects  of  some  historical 
event  were  noted.  The  death  of  some  distinguished  man  was  men- 
tioned, discoveries  and  inventions  were  spoken  of,  anything  having 
a  tendency  to  expand  and  broaden  the  visible  horizon  of  these  active- 
minded  young  people  was  seized  and  utilized  for  this  purpose.    If  the 


CHAUXCEY  GILES. 


25 


children  asked  hard  questions,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  say  tliat  he  did 
not  know  but  would  look  into  it. 

"  He  took  educational  journals  and  kept  himself  abreast  of  the 
times  in  his  work.  Methods  of  interesting  his  pupils  were  a  constant 
study  with  him.  His  heart  was  in  his  work,  and  of  course  from  year 
to  year  he  was  constantly  perfecting  himself  in  it." 

For  a  time  health  wa.s  better  and  hfe  happier  in  Leb- 
anon than  in  Hamilton,  and  interest  in  the  New  Church 
wa.s  growing.    May  16,  1846,  Mr.  Giles  writes, — 

"  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  believe  as  I  once  did.  The  doctrines 
of  the  New  Church  have  thrown  new  light  upon  the  Word,  upon  life, 
upon  everything,  and  I  hardly  know  what  my  duty  is  with  regard  to 
an  open  profession  of  adherence  to  those  doctrines." 

January  i,  1848,  he  notes  that  a  small  society  of  the 
New  Church  has  been  formed  in  Lebanon,  and  that  Mrs. 
Giles  and  he  have  added  their  names  as  members. 

While  living  in  Lebanon  the  interest  in  the  New  Church 
was  much  strengthened  by  acquaintance  with  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  David  Espy,  who  lived  some  miles  nearer  to  Cin- 
cinnati, at  Twenty  Mile  Stand.  They  were  people  of 
lovely  character,  and  beautiful  examples  of  the  life  to 
which  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  should  lead. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  stay  in  Lebanon  the  .sky  be- 
came overcast.  Mr.  Giles  had  suffered  severely  with 
pleurisy  and  with  terrible  neuralgic  pains  in  his  thigh, 
which  interfered  with  his  work  in  school.  The  ist  of 
January,  1848,  found  him  much  disheartened,  and  he 
resigned  his  charge  of  the  Lebanon  Academy.  It  was 
decided  to  open  a  family  boarding-school  for  boys,  —  they 
had  already  made  a  home  for  a  few  scholars, — and  it  was 
hoped  that  Mr.  Giles  might  be  so  far  relieved  from  care 
that  he  would  recover  his  health.  A  pleasant  location 
^  3 


26        PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


was  found  at  Yellow  Springs,  a  summer  resort  on  the  line 
of  the  Little  Miami  Railroad,  which  had  been  lately  built, 
and  they  moved  to  the  new  home  in  April,  1848.  A  year 
was  passed  in  this  place.  Mrs.  Giles  gave  the  boys  a 
good  and  happy  home.  Mr.  Giles,  though  suffering 
intensely  much  of  the  time,  was  with  them  in  their  out- 
door amusements,  arranging  e.xcursions  into  the  country, 
which  was  full  of  flowers,  and  visits  to  mills  and  factories 
in  the  neighborhood.  He  also  gave  what  personal  care 
he  could  to  their  instruction,  taking  them  into  the  house 
when  he  became  unable  to  go  to  the  school-room,  and 
hearing  them  in  bed  when  he  was  unable  to  sit  up.  After 
a  time,  through  long  and  painful  treatment,  his  suffering 
was  relieved. 

A  page  of  the  journal  kept  in  Yellow  Springs  gives  the 
first  suggestion  of  Mr.  Giles's  becoming  a  New-Church 
minister.    He  writes  March  3,1849, — 

"This  morning  I  received  a  letter  from  the  Rev.  J.  P.  Stuart,  in 
which  he  announced  his  intention  to  visit  us  again  soon.  He  has 
hinted  several  times  that  I  would  sometime  preach  New-Church  doc- 
trines. If  I  was  free  from  debt  and  qualified,  I  should  like  nothing 
better.  But  I  am  neither.  [For  some  years  he  had  been  burdened 
with  debt  incurred  by  endorsing  for  another.]  My  intellectual  cul- 
ture has  been  too  meagre,  and  my  habits  of  thought  and  reading  too 
desultory,  to  enable  me  ever  to  be  an  able  expounder  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  New  Church.  But  if  I  was  going  to  preach  at  all,  I  should  by 
all  means  wish  to  preach  them.  They  are  so  consistent  with  the 
nature  of  man  and  with  themselves.  There  seem  to  be  no  weak 
points  in  them.  They  meet  every  want  of  the  human  heart.  They 
embrace  every  idea  that  is  rational  concerning  God  and  the  si)iritual 
world,  and  embrace  in  their  noble  philosophy  every  atom  of  matter." 

This  was  a  season  of  great  discontent  with  himself,  of 
many  regrets  that  he  was  not  more  useful  and  that  he  had 


CIIA  UNCE  Y  GIL  ES. 


27 


had  so  little  system  or  jierseverance  in  his  efforts  to  edu- 
cate and  train  himself.  But  the  sunshine  of  trust  in 
Providence  soon  returned.  Occasional  visits  from  Mr. 
Stuart  were  a  source  of  much  i)leasure  and  comfort. 
Reed's  "Growth  of  the  Mind,"  Noble's  "Lectures," 
and  Swedenborg's  tract  on  "The  Infinite"  were  among 
the  books  which  were  read  with  pleasure.  "I  consider 
the  greatest  blessing  of  my  life,"  Mr.  Giles  writes,  March 
25,  1849,  "that  I  became  acquainted  with  them  [the 
doctrines  of  the  New  Church].  They  have  removed  the 
darkness  which  enveloped  many  objects,  and  made  them 
a  matter  of  reason,  when  before  they  were  only  cognizant 
to  the  eye  of  faith.  They  have  done  more  than  this. 
They  have  presented  the  Lord  in  such  a  light  that  the 
whole  universe  has  become  changed,  and  is  radiant  with 
His  love." 

Mr.  Giles  had  not  been  long  in  Yellow  Springs  when 
a  proposition  was  made  to  him,  through  the  father  of 
one  of  his  scholars,  to  remove  his  school  to  Pomeroy,  a 
mining  town  on  the  Ohio  River.  In  April,  1849,  he  took 
his  family  to  Pomeroy,  and  the  old  Pomeroy  mansion,  in 
a  commanding  position  above  the  river,  was  prepared  for 
the  uses  of  home  and  school.  The  Pomeroy  family,  the 
owners  of  the  mines,  were  cultivated  people,  and  their 
large  "connection"  formed  a  delightful  society  into  which 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Giles  were  cordially  received.  This  was 
their  home  till  their  removal  to  Cincinnati  in  the  autumn 
of  1853.  The  stay  in  Pomeroy  was  delightful  in  many 
ways.  The  home  was  charming  and  healthful,  the  society 
was  pleasant,  the  school  prosperous,  and  when  leaving 
was  spoken  of,  Mr.  Giles  was  told  that  if  he  wished  for 


28        PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


more  money,  he  could  remain  and  have  whatever  he 
wanted.  A  friend  who  had  charge  of  the  common 
schools  of  Pomeroy  during  Mr.  Giles's  stay,  and  had 
good  opportunity  to  know  his  abilities  as  a  teacher,  says, 
"As  an  educator  he  had  no  superior  and  few  equals. 
He  held  to  the  view  that  love  and  justice  will  control 
where  force  would  fail. ' ' 

Mr.  Giles  continued  his  study  of  Swedenborg.  After 
a  time  there  was  opportunity  to  be  useful  in  conducting 
services,  and  a  friend  suggested  that  he  obtain  a  license 
as  a  reader.  Accordingly  he  was  ordained  May  23,  1852, 
with  authority  to  lead  in  worship,  and  on  Sundays  he 
conducted  services  in  turn  in  several  places  within  reach 
of  Pomeroy.  At  Rock  Spring,  two  miles  from  Pomeroy, 
he  preached  in  summer  in  a  barn  ;  at  Rutland,  seven 
miles  distant,  in  the  Universalist  church  ;  and  at  Kygers- 
ville,  twelve  miles  away.  He  held  service  also  occasion- 
ally in  the  school-room  at  Pomeroy.  In  undertaking  this 
work  Mr.  Giles  expected  to  read  the  sermons  of  others, 
but  he  had  not  read  more  than  one  or  two  when  he  began 
to  write  for  himself  The  first  attempt  pleased  him  so 
little  that  he  threw  it  away.  The  first  sermon  of  his  that 
was  heard  was  from  the  text,  "The  leaves  of  the  tree 
were  for  the  healing  of  the  nations,"'  delivered  in  1852. 
Mr.  Giles  used  often  to  recall  a  meeting  at  Rock  S])ring 
at  which  he  delivered  this  sermon.  It  was  in  a  log  house 
on  a  sunnncr  evening.  The  only  light  was  a  tallow  candle, 
around  which  the  insects  fluttered,  and  all  that  he  could  see 
of  his  audience  was  their  eyes  shining  out  of  the  darkness. 

The  Sunday  rides  to  the  places  of  meeting  are  remem- 
bered with  pleasure  by  one  who  often  accompanied  Mr. 


CIIAUNCEY  GILES. 


29 


Giles.  There  were  others  who  attended  the  services  in 
the  several  places,  and  enjoyed  the  same  sermon  four 
Sundays  in  succession.  Mr.  Giles  had  preaclied  in  this 
way  for  a  year,  when  there  was  desire  that  he  should  per- 
form the  marriage  service  and  administer  the  sacraments. 
He  was  therefore  ordained  with  the  full  powers  of  a  min- 
ister of  the  New  Church,  May  29,  1853,  ^'''c  R^^- 
David  Powell,  in  Cincinnati,  who  also  performed  the  first 
ordination.  Thus  far  he  had  given  most  of  his  time  and 
strength  to  his  school,  and  the  preaching  took  a  second- 
ary place.  The  time  was  near  when  he  must  choose 
between  the  two. 

In  the  summer  of  1853,  Mr.  Giles  took  some  of  his 
scholars  to  their  home  in  Cincinnati,  for  the  vacation,  and 
was  invited  to  preach  one  Sunday  for  the  New-Church 
Society.  He  often  recalled  with  amusement  the  disap- 
pointed look  of  the  congregation  when  he,  a  school- 
teacher from  the  country,  entered  the  pulpit.  But  it  gave 
place  to  intense  interest  before  he  finished.  From  that 
time  his  call  to  Cincinnati  was  talked  of  He  continued 
his  journey  to  St.  Louis,  where  he  was  engaged  to 
preach  for  a  few  Sundays,  and  returning,  he  took  back 
his  boys  to  Pomeroy  for  the  opening  of  the  fall  term.  In 
September  an  invitation  came  to  Mr.  Giles  from  the  First 
New-Jerusalem  Society  of  Cincinnati,  to  officiate  as  their 
minister  for  one  year  at  a  salary  of  one  thousand  dollars. 

The  question  was  a  hard  one.  On  the  one  hand  were 
a  pleasant  and  healthful  home,  and  an  assured  support  in 
a  profession  in  which  he  had  long  experience.  On  the 
other  hand  were  city  life,  a  greatly  reduced  income,  and 
a  profession  which  was  almost  untried,  and  for  which  he 

3* 


3° 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  k'NOWLEDGE. 


had  no  regular  preparation,  but  which  offered  the  possi- 
biUty  of  greater  usefuhiess.  He  decided  in  favor  of  the 
change,  and  removed  with  his  family  to  Cincinnati  in 
November,  1853. 

From  a  worldly  point  of  view  the  step  was  most  unwise. 
Some  of  Mr.  Giles's  friends  almost  doubted  his  sanity  ; 
others  were  sorry  for  the  change,  knowing  his  excellence 
as  a  teacher,  and  feeling  that  his  best  use  was  in  that  pro- 
fession. But  the  step  was  taken,  and  Mr.  Giles  entered 
into  the  active  work  of  a  large  and  long-established 
society,  at  forty  years  of  age,  with  no  theological  training, 
with  less  acquaintance  with  the  doctrines  of  the  church 
than  many  in  the  congregation,  having  written  but  twelve 
sermons,  and  having  seen  the  sacraments  administered  in 
the  New  Church  but  a  few  times.  He  began  at  once  to 
preach  twice  each  Sunday.  He  was  called  here  and  there 
to  long  distances  to  attend  funerals.  Within  the  society 
he  found  conflicting  elements  to  harmonize  and  an  almost 
utter  lack  of  young  life.  It  was  not  an  easy  task  which 
he  had  undertaken. 

Mr.  Giles,  in  beginning  his  work  in  Cincinnati,  made 
special  effort  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  young  people  and 
to  interest  them  in  the  services  and  in  the  practical  uses 
of  the  church.  His  long  acquaintance  and  experience 
with  his  scholars  prepared  him  to  succeed  with  the  young 
people  and  the  children  of  the  church  ;  and  his  cheerful- 
ness and  pleasant  humor  helped  to  endear  him  to  them. 
His  efforts  were  successful,  and  the  society  was  soon 
-Strengthened  by  a  large  body  of  active  and  earnest 
younger  members.  The  affection  of  the  young  people 
for  Mr.  Giles  and  their  devotion  to  him  were  very  strong 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


31 


in  Cincinnati.  One  of  the  "young  people,"  writing  of 
a  time  a  little  later,  when  Mr.  Giles  lived  at  the  top  of  one 
of  the  hills  which  circle  Cincinnati  about,  says, — 

"  It  was  a  walk  of  a  mile  and  a  lialf  from  where  most  of  us  lived 
to  the  hills,  and  another  half-mile  climb  to  the  house,  up  a  steep  path 
with  rough  stone  steps  a  part  of  the  way.  It  was  before  the  days  of 
inclined  planes  or  even  of  street-cars  or  omnibuses.  And  every 
week  a  party  of  the  young  people  would  go  over  this  toilsome  route 
to  see  him  and  have  a  meeting  of  a  young  people's  class." 

Mr.  Giles's  relations  with  the  little  children  were  also 
very  happy.  He  was  usually  present  in  the  Sunday- 
school  ;  for  a  time  he  was  the  superintendent.  But  his 
part  at  the  Christmas  and  Easter  festivals  was  what  the 
children  especially  enjoyed.  The  stories,  "  The  Wonder- 
ful Pocket,"  "The  Magic  Shoes,"  and  many  more, 
which  have  since  been  printed  in  several  little  volumes, 
and  which  have  interested  so  many  children,  were  most 
of  them  written  for  these  occasions.  They  are  especially 
dear  to  those  who  associate  them  with  Christmas  happi- 
ness and  Mr.  Giles's  charming  manner  in  addressing  the 
children.  There  was  never  in  the  stories  any  exciting 
plot,  and  rarely  much  action  or  incident,  but  they  always 
expressed  some  truth  of  our  inner  life  in  simple  and 
amusing  form,  in  which  it  was  at  once  recognized  by  the 
children.  "Those  who  were  scholars  then  and  have 
since  grown  into  mature  men  and  women  tell  us  they 
were  the  most  interesting  stories  they  ever  listened  to, 
and  they  never  lost  a  word  of  them  as  they  were  read." 
So  writes  one  who  heard  them,  and  adds,  "I  think 
there  never  was  a  man  that  came  closer  to  children  than 
he  did,  and  when  he  spoke  every  one  listened.  These 


32 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


little  stories  were  gems  that  every  child  remembered,  and 
on  any  Christmas  could  tell  just  what  the  preceding 
Christmas  gift  was  and  all  about  it."  The  custom  of 
putting  thoughts  for  the  children  in  story  form  at  Christ- 
mas and  Easter  was  one  which  Mr.  Giles  continued,  and 
his  stories  were  enjoyed  no  less  by  the  children  in  New 
York  and  Philadelphia. 

As  for  the  old  dissensions  in  the  Cincinnati  Society, 
Mr.  Giles  treated  them  as  he  almost  always  did  such 
things, — he  ignored  them  altogether.  He  declined  to 
listen  to  complaints  of  one  against  another.  He  was 
watched  to  see  with  what  party  he  would  side,  but  it  was 
as  it  had  been  in  school  when  the  children  tried  to  detect 
partiality, — there  was  none  to  find.  Under  such  treat- 
ment dissensions  could  not  live. 

At  the  end  of  one  year's  ministry  in  Cincinnati,  the 
society  voted  to  employ  Mr.  Giles  for  another  year.  As 
the  second  year  drew  to  its  close  in  the  autumn  of  1855, 
Mr.  Giles  received  an  invitation  to  go  to  Boston  to  act  as 
assistant  to  the  Rev.  Thomas  Worcester.  The  invitation 
was  declined,  but  the  thought  of  losing  Mr.  Giles  seems 
to  have  awakened  the  Cincinnati  Society  to  the  need  of 
making  his  relation  with  them  more  permanent,  and  they 
asked  him  to  become  their  pastor.  He  accepted  the 
position  October  6,  1855.  He  records  in  his  journal  his 
desire  and  intention  to  be  a  devoted  pastor,  to  enter  upon 
a  more  thorough  course  of  study,  to  perfect  himself  as 
much  as  possible  as  a  preacher,  and  to  become  better 
acquainted  with  the  peojile,  and  strive  to  do  all  that  he 
can  for  their  si)iritual  good. 

The  work  in  Cincinnati  was  laborious.     It  was  usual 


CHA  UNCE  V  GIL  ES. 


33 


for  Mr.  Giles  to  teach  a  class  in  the  Sunday-school ; 
' '  hear  a  class, ' '  he  always  said,  which  suggests  that  with 
him  scholars  were  not  passive  listeners.  The  morning 
service  followed.  In  the  afternoon  he  often  drove  to 
Glendale,  a  suburb  of  Cincinnati,  and  preached,  returning 
to  lecture  in  the  evening.  For  a  time  he  gave  lectures 
Wednesday  evenings,  and  a  class  of  ladies  met  Saturdays 
at  his  house.  Calls  to  attend  funerals  were  frequent ;  it 
was  the  exception  when  a  week  passed  without  one,  and 
on  many  Sundays  a  funeral  was  attended  before  morning 
service  or  between  services.  It  was  not  the  custom  in 
those  days  to  take  long  summer  vacations,  and  the  work 
in  the  hot  weather,  with  short  intermission,  was  exhaust- 
ing. For  some  years  Mr.  Giles  suffered  with  his  throat, 
and  feared  that  the  trouble  would  interfere  with  his  work. 
The  most  serious  interruption  was  in  the  winter  of  i860, 
when  on  account  of  feeble  health  he  visited  New  Orleans, 
being  absent  two  months. 

In  1858  a  new  responsibility  came  to  Mr.  Giles  in  his 
election  as  president  of  the  Urbana  University.  He 
never  made  Urbana  his  home,  but  for  several  years  exer- 
cised a  general  oversight  of  the  institution  and  visited  it 
occasionally. 

A  tone  of  discouragement  is  noticeable  in  Mr.  Giles's 
private  record  of  his  early  ministry,  but  it  was  not  felt  by 
others.  His  influence  in  the  society,  in  the  Sunday- 
school,  and  at  home  was  uniformly  cheerful.  He  was 
dissatisfied  with  his  extempore  speaking,  and  thought 
himself  too  old  to  learn  to  do  it  well.  He  also  concluded 
rather  hastily  in  those  days  that  he  never  should  be  able 
to  write  an  interesting  course  of  lectures.  He  was  some- 
c 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


times  disheartened  when  the  attendance  at  service  was 
small,  and  would  fear  that  his  usefulness  in  that  place  was 
nearly  ended.  Indeed,  he  never  could  quite  overcome  a 
little  depression  when  he  was  obliged  to  speak  to  ' '  empty 
benches." 

Mr.  Giles  wrote,  August  9,  1863,  when  thirty  years  of 
his  best  work  were  still  before  him, — 

"I  now  begin  the  work  of  another  year  with  many  doubts  and 
misgivings  and  with  Httle  apparent  strength  for  the  work.  I  do  not 
think  I  shall  accomplish  much,  and  I  fear  I  shall  not  do  much  more 
in  this  world.  How  little,  oh,  how  little  I  have  done  ! — almost  nothing 
it  would  seem.  And  I  feel  that  my  powers  are  failing  in  some 
respects.  I  may  preach  better  perhaps.  But  I  do  not  know.  There 
ought  to  be  ten  or  fifteen  years  of  good  hard  work  in  me  yet." 

But  another  spirit  was  gaining  strength  which  over- 
came any  natural  despondency.  A  week  later  than  the 
above  he  writes, — 

"  I  am  trying  to  bring  myself  into  a  state  to  do  my  duty  and  leave 
the  results  with  the  Lord.  I  know  that  the  Lord  requires  only  my 
duty.  Results  are  with  Him  alone.  We  have  nothing  to  do  with 
them." 

To  this  trust  was  added,  as  years  went  on,  an  undoubt- 
ing  confidence  in  the  triumph  of  the  truth,  and  in  the 
real  success  of  every  effort  to  advance  the  cause  of  the 
Lord's  church,  which  was  inspiring  to  all  who  felt  its 
influence. 

Mr.  Giles,  soon  after  he  became  a  minister,  was  recog- 
nized as  one  of  the  ablest  preachers  in  the  New  Church. 
His  preaching  from  the  first  possessed  the  same  elements 
of  strength  which  afterwards  made  it  so  effective  in  other 
fields.    He  felt  the  need  of  ' '  more  plainness  and  direct- 


CHAUXCEY  GILES. 


35 


ness  in  preaching  and  talking  about  the  spirit;"  and 
spiritual  things,  as  he  spoke  of  them,  became  substantial 
realities.  Subjects  often  treated  in  a  vague  and  abstract 
way  he  made  clear  by  regarding  them  from  universal 
principles.  He  was  fond  of  speaking  of  religion  as  a 
spiritual  science,  and  of  showing  that  spiritual  truth  has 
the  same  logical  unity  and  the  same  certainty  as  truth  of 
natural  science.  Knowing  that  the  same  Divine  laws 
rule  in  all  realms  of  the  creation,  in  mind  and  matter,  in 
heaven  and  earth,  he  looked  to  nature  and  to  natural  life 
for  illustration  of  spiritual  truth.  He  had  remarkable 
facility  in  such  illustration.  He  also  made  frequent  use 
of  the  principle  that  the  Lord  works  always  like  Himself. 
By  studying  His  methods  in  a  plant  which  we  hold  in 
our  hand  we  may  learn  of  man's  regeneration.  "How 
often,"  writes  a  friend,  "has  he  taken  as  his  illustration 
an  egg,  a  seed,  the  eye,  a  watch,  an  engine,  and  presented 
it  in  such  a  way  that  the  spiritual  truth  he  wanted  to  teach 
blossomed  in  the  mind  as  he  talked  of  the  natural  image  !' ' 
Mr.  Giles  had  no  taste  for  minute  study  of  fine  points, 
and  never  burdened  his  sermons  with  them,  but  set  him- 
self to  teach  the  great  essential  principles  of  the  New 
Church  with  all  possible  clearness  and  force.  A  hopeful, 
joyful  spirit  pervaded  his  preaching,  —  a  deep  sense  of  the 
wonderful  goodness  of  the  Lord  and  of  the  beauty  of  the 
heavenly  life.  He  did  not  threaten  and  condemn,  but 
won  the  heart  to  the  goodness  of  living  with  the  Lord. 
He  was  not  discouraging  to  weak  and  sinful  souls,  but 
inspired  them  with  new  hope  and  resolution.  Mr.  Giles's 
manner  in  the  pulpit  was  simple  and  earnest ;  his  voice 
was  of  unusual  strength  and  of  a  sympathetic  quality. 


36 


/'A'OCy^'£SS  AV  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


There  were  times  when  the  tenderness  of  his  own  feeling 
made  it  difficult  for  him  to  speak.  Some  would  say  that 
Mr.  Giles  was  persuasive.  It  was  not  so  in  any  artful 
sense,  but  his  manner  was  tender  and  at  the  same  time 
expressive  of  his  own  intense  conviction  of  the  truth  of 
what  he  said. 

Mr.  Giles  was  always  in  the  effort  to  improve  his 
preaching-,  and  often  expressed  the  belief  that  there  are 
new  and  better  ways  of  presenting  spiritual  truth  yet  to 
be  discovered.    Early  in  his  ministry  he  wrote, — 

"  I  am  more  and  more  dissatisfied  with  tlie  effect  of  preaching  ;  it 
does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  as  efficient  and  well  directed  as  it  ought 
to  be,  certainly  not  if  its  main  object  is  to  teach  spiritual  truth.  No 
system  of  science  could  be  taught  in  such  a  hap  hazard  manner  witli 
any  success.  There  is  certainly  great  room  for  improvement  in  my 
mode  of  preaching,  and  I  mean  to  effect  it." 

A  year  later  he  writes,  — 

"  It  does  seem  as  though  more  might  be  made  of  the  sermon  in 
the  New  Church.  But  I  have  not  found  the  way  yet,  and  I  do  not 
know  who  has.    \'ery  little  good  seems  to  grow  out  of  it  yet." 

And  once  more, — 

"  I  am  satisfied  that  ordinary  sermons  are  but  little  use.  They 
are  too  fragmentary.  They  give  truth  in  bits  without  showing  its 
relation.  W'e  are  yet  far  from  the  true  method,  and  I  am  too  old  to 
do  much  in  finding  or  practising  a  better." 

It  was  probably  his  desire  to  make  preaching  more 
connected  and  systematic  which  led  Mr.  Giles  often  to 
write  sermons  in  connected  series,  keejiing  the  thought 
of  the  congregation  upon  one  subject  for  a  considerable 
time.  The  ex])ressions  of  dissatisfaction  are  interesting 
as  illustrating  Mr.  Giles's  desire  for  improvement,  for  he 


CIIAUNCKY  GILES. 


37 


did  not  become  too  old  to  enjoy  trying  new  tilings  and 
new  ways  if  they  gave  promise  to  be  better  than  the  old. 
But  no  one  will  accept  his  own  estimate  of  his  preaching. 

Though  Mr.  Giles  excelled  as  a  preacher,  he  was  per- 
haps equally  helpful  to  the  church  in  other  ways.  He 
was  always  a  peace-maker.  His  almost  overwhelming 
sense  of  the  greatness  of  the  work  intrusted  to  us  by  the 
Lord  made  all  personal  feelings  and  dissensions  seem 
wholly  out  of  place.  All  our  time  and  strength  are 
needed  for  the  work.  He  was  wonderfully  successful  in 
finding  money  for  church  uses,  and  he  did  it  not  by  beg- 
ging, but  by  helping  people  to  realize  that  they  have  no 
money  of  their  own,  but  that  what  they  have  is  intrusted 
to  them  by  the  Lord  to  make  useful. 

Mr.  Giles  was  a  leader  always,  but  a  leader  whose  rule 
was  scarcely  felt.  He  never  forced  his  will  upon  others, 
but  taught  the  true  principles  of  action  and  waited 
patiently.  He  prepared  the  ground  and  sowed  the  seed 
and  gave  it  time  to  grow.  An  example  of  this  is  found  in 
his  relation  with  the  first  church  of  which  he  was  pastor. 

The  Cincinnati  Society,  when  Mr.  Giles  became  its 
pastor,  was  not  connected  with  the  General  Society  of 
the  New  Church  in  Ohio,  nor  with  the  General  Conven- 
tion in  the  United  States.  Mr.  Giles  believed  that  asso- 
ciation is  orderly  and  useful ;  that  so  a  power  and  free- 
dom of  action  are  gained  which  an  individual  or  a  society 
does  not  enjoy  which  stands  alone,  but  he  was  willing  to 
wait  till  the  usefulness  of  union  commended  itself  to 
others.  He  had  himself  been  received  as  a  member  of 
the  General  Convention  at  the  meeting  in  Boston,  June 
30,  1855.     In  1857,  through  Mr.  Giles's  influence,  the 

4 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


Convention  met  in  Cincinnati  ;  and  September  5,  i860, 
[lis  patience  was  rewarded  by  the  society's  voting  to  join 
the  General  Society  of  the  New  Church  in  Ohio,  which 
was  a  member  of  the  General  Convention.  ' '  This  I 
have  long  desired, ' '  Mr.  Giles  writes,  ' '  and  I  have  no 
doubt  it  will  be  of  great  use  to  the  church  generally. ' ' 
It  is  remarkable  that  a  similar  experience  was  repeated  in 
New  York,  and  again  in  Philadelphia.  The  society  in 
New  York  had  withdrawn  from  the  Convention,  and  had 
worked  alone  twelve  years  when  Mr.  Giles  became  its 
pastor.  Some  one  remarked  to  Mr.  Giles  when  he  went 
to  New  York,  "You  need  not  expect  to  induce  this 
society  to  join  the  Convention  ;  it  never  will."  To 
which  he  replied,  "  I  shall  not  try  to  induce  you,  but  you 
will  do  it."  A  year  later  the  society  joined  with  others 
in  the  neighborhood  to  form  the  New  York  Association, 
which  after  another  year  united  with  the  general  body  of 
the  church.  The  situation  in  Philadelphia  was  peculiar. 
For  years  the  President  of  the  Convention  was  pastor  of 
a  society  which  was  not  connected  with  that  body  ;  but 
patient  waiting  and  the  principle  of  use  prevailed. 

The  society  in  Cincinnati,  at  the  time  of  Mr.  Giles's 
coming,  occupied  a  church  on  Longworth  Street,  which 
was  dark  and  noisy  and  unsuital)le.  Mr.  Giles  was  ear- 
nest that  they  should  have  a  better  home.  Finally  he 
preached  a  sermon  in  which  he  contrasted  the  elegance 
of  the  people's  dwellings  with  the  poorness  of  the  house 
provided  for  the  worship  of  the  Lord.  A  friend  remarked 
to  him  at  the  close  of  the  service,  "  Mr.  Giles,  that  ser- 
mon will  do  one  of  two  things  :  it  will  drive  you  out  of 
this  church,  or  the  whole  congregation."    It  had  the 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


39 


latter  effect,  but  not  immediately.  The  society  took  up 
the  question  in  earnest  in  the  spring  of  i860.  A  lot  on 
one  of  the  most  central  corners  in  the  city  was  bought, 
and  plans  were  being  considered  when  the  breaking  out 
of  the  Civil  War  put  a  stop  to  all  enterprise,  and  the 
ground  was  returned  to  its  f®rmer  owners.  But  before 
Mr.  Giles  left  Cincinnati  a  better  home  for  the  society 
was  provided.  The  church  on  the  corner  of  Fourth  and 
John  Streets,  now  occupied  by  the  society,  was  bought, 
and  January  17,  1864,  it  was  dedicated. 

At  the  same  time  that  the  new  church  was  being  pre- 
pared, Mr.  Giles  was  considering  a  proposition  to  remove 
to  New  York.  He  had  declined  the  invitation  to  Boston 
some  years  before,  and  had  already  declined  an  invitation 
to  New  York.  This  time  he  decided  to  go,  and  on  Feb- 
ruary I,  1864,  presented  his  resignation,  to  take  effect 
the  1st  of  the  following  May.  The  reasons  which  led  to 
this  change  are  shown  in  letters  written  by  Mr.  Giles  to 
the  society.  Referring  to  the  lighter  work  in  a  new  field, 
he  says, — 

"This  would  give  me  leisure  for  more  pastoral  duty  and  time  to 
prepare  some  works  for  the  press,  which  I  have  long  contemplated 
and  which  men  of  good  judgment  tliink  might  be  of  much  use.  And 
it  is  a  question  with  me  whether  I  might  not  be  more  widely  and 
permanently  useful  to  the  church  if  by  using  the  materials  already 
accumulated  I  could  find  time  to  prepare  my  discourses  with  more 
care,  and  address  a  wider  audience  through  the  press." 

He  speaks  most  affectionately  of  his  relations  with  the 
Cincinnati  Society, — 

"  I  feel  bound  to  the  society  by  many  strong  and  tender  ties,  and 
the  thought  of  leaving  you  is  always  attended  with  pain.    I  have 


PROGRESS  LY  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


preached  for  you  nearly  one-fourtli  of  the  existence  of  your  society, 
and  I  cannot  recall  an  unpleasant  word  that  has  passed  between  me 
and  any  member  of  the  society  or  congregation  during  this  time." 

His  letter  of  resignation  shows  that  the  consideration 
mentioned  in  the  former  letter  prevailed, — 

"  I  know  I  could  not  much  longer  perform  the  duties  which  the 
society  requires  and  which  the  wants  of  the  church  demand.  My 
health  is  good  now,  but  I  know  that  I  have  not  the  power  of  pro- 
longed labor  that  I  had  a  few  years  ago,  and  I  see  unmistakable 
signs  that  the  power  is  constantly  diminishing.  I  think  I  can  be 
more  useful  to  the  church  and  to  my  family  to  accept  the  way  Divine 
Providence  has  opened  for  me,  to  get  relief  from  the  great  and  con- 
tinued pressure  of  writing,  and  so  use  my  remaining  strength  and 
direct  it  in  such  channels  that  it  may  be  the  most  available  for  the 
use  of  the  church." 

The  last  months  of  Mr.  Giles's  stay  in  Cincinnati  were 
especially  happy  ones.  The  society  was  occupying  the 
pleasant  church  lately  pro\  ided,  the  attendance  at  wor- 
ship was  large,  and  many  persons  united  with  the  church 
by  baptism  or  confirmation.  On  Sunday,  April  17,  thirty 
persons,  ten  adults  and  tw  enty  children,  were  baptized  ; 
and  on  the  following  Sunday,  which  was  the  last  on  which 
Mr.  Giles  preached  as  pastor  of  the  society,  eighteen  per- 
sons were  confirmed.  ' '  It  was  a  most  beautiful  and 
interesting  sight,"  he  writes,  "and  rejoiced  my  heart 
greatly.  I  seemed  to  be  reaping  the  harvest  of  my  past 
labors."  The  Holy  Sup])er  was  administered  to  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  conmumicants,  although  the  day 
was  stormy.  "  This  is  four  or  five  times  as  many  as  were 
present  when  I  administered  it  the  first  time.  The  Lord 
be  praised  for  it  all." 

While  connected  with  tlic  Cincinnati  Society,  Mr.  Giles 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


41 


received  the  powers  of  Ordaining  Minister  or  General 
Pastor  at  the  meeting  of  the  General  Convention  in  Phila- 
delphia, June  14,  1863. 

The  affection  between  Mr.  Giles  and  the  Cincinnati 
Society  was  strong  and  always  continued  so.  There  was 
in  it  something  of  that  friendliness  which  belongs  to  a 
new  country  where  people  have  been  drawn  closely 
together  by  the  hardships  of  pioneer  life.  But  a  short 
time  before  his  death  he  wrote, — 

"I  cannot  tell  you  how  much  it  gratifies  me  to  know  that  I  still 
hold  a  warm  place  in  the  hearts  of  my  old  and  new  friends  in  Cin- 
cinnati. I  think  the  members  of  the  New  Church  there  seem  nearer 
to  me  than  they  do  at  any  other  place.  They  were  my  first  love  in 
the  church,  and  I  think  of  them  as  they  were  when  we  lived  there 
and  they  became  a  part  of  my  life  " 

The  work  in  New  York  began  in  May,  1864,  and  con- 
tinued for  nearly  fourteen  years.  It  could  hardly  be 
called  lighter  than  the  work  in  Cincinnati.  It  did,  how- 
ever, lead  to  the  printing  of  articles  and  books,  the  use 
which  Mr.  Giles  had  especially  in  view  in  making  the 
change.  Until  this  time  very  few  of  Mr.  Giles's  sermons 
or  lectures  had  been  printed,  though  for  years  the  manu- 
scripts had  been  borrowed  and  read  in  several  small  socie- 
ties which  were  without  ministers. 

The  winter  after  going  to  New  York  Mr.  Giles  lectured 
in  the  church  on  Thirty-Fifth  Street  on  Sunday  evenings, 
from  October  to  March.  He  began  in  November  a  series 
of  six  lectures  on  the  spiritual  world.  The  first  lecture 
of  the  series  was  entitled  ' '  The  Answer  of  the  New- 
Jerusalem  Church  to  the  Questions  :  What  is  Spirit  ? 
What  is  the  Spiritual  World  ?  Where  is  it  ?  and  What 

4* 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


are  its  Relations  to  this  World?"  Mr.  Giles  notes  that 
the  house  was  completely  filled  and  some  went  away. 
The  church  was  crowded  throughout  the  course.  After 
the  delivery  of  the  first  lecture  the  suggestion  was  made 
that  it  should  be  printed  and  be  ready  for  distribution  the 
next  Sunday  evening.  This  was  done,  and  the  experi- 
ment seemed  so  useful  that  it  was  continued  through  the 
course,  five  hundred  copies  of  each  lecture  being  printed 
for  free  distribution.  These  lectures  as  printed  from  week 
to  week  became  afterwards  the  basis  of  the  little  book 
"  The  Nature  of  Spirit,  and  of  Man  as  a  Spiritual  Being," 
which  has  proved  the  most  popular  of  any  book  of  the 
New  Church.  It  has  been  issued  in  several  languages 
and  editions,  and  its  circulation  has  probably  reached  one 
hundred  thousand  copies.  The  lectures  were  written 
from  week  to  week  for  the  next  Sunday's  use,  w'ith  no 
thought  of  making  a  book  ;  and  when  they  were  first 
published  Mr.  Giles  was  too  busy  to  revise  them,  and 
they  were  seen  through  the  press  by  a  friend.  This  was 
characteristic  of  Mr.  Giles's  literary  work.  Of  all  that 
he  has  published  very  little  has  been  written  originally  for 
that  purpose,  or  has  received  the  careful  finish  which  an 
author  expects  to  give  to  a  book.  He  wrote  right  along, 
with  a  plan  of  what  he  intended  to  say,  but  allowing  his 
subject  to  grow  and  develop  as  he  went  ;  and  as  it  was 
written,  so  it  usually  stood,  with  little  change  or  revision. 

In  closing  the  lectures  of  the  first  winter  in  New  York, 
Mr.  Giles  says, — 

"  They  have  been  the  most  successful  course  I  have  ever  delivered. 
The  attendance  has  been  good  throughout,  and  the  interest  quite 
profound.    Kleven  of  them  have  been  printed  and  very  extensively 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


43 


circulated  through  the  country.  Tiiey  have  oeeii  read  in  many 
societies  and  sent  to  a  great  number  of  individuals,  and  I  trust 
something  has  been  done  to  help  forward  the  cause  of  humanity, 
and  to  establish  the  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth." 

The  success  of  the  first  season's  lectures  in  New 
York  led  to  a  bolder  attempt  the  following  year  to  bring 
the  truths  of  the  New  Church  before  the  public.  The 
great  hall  of  the  Cooper  Union  was  secured  for  a  course 
of  five  Sunday  evening  lectures.  The  subjects  were 
"Death,"  "The  Resurrection  of  Man,"  "The  Life  of 
Man  after  Death,"  "  Swedenborg, "  and  "The  New 
Church  a  New  Dispensation  of  Divine  Truth."  The 
hall  was  well  filled  at  every  meeting  ;  probably  fifteen 
hundred  people  were  present  at  some  of  the  lectures,  and 
the  attention  was  good.  But  the  visible  effect  of  the 
lectures  was  disappointing.  A  few  persons  were  drawn 
to  the  society,  and  doubtless  a  use  was  done  in  intro- 
ducing the  New  Church  to  the  community  and  removing 
prejudices  against  it.  "Mr.  Giles  did  his  work  well," 
writes  a  friend  ;  "his  heart  was  in  it  ;  he  was  satisfied  ; 
for,  as  he  encouragingly  said,  '  No  one  knows  the  result 
of  the  planting.'  " 

Further  remembrances  of  Mr.  Giles  in  New  York  by 
the  same  good  friend  are  too  pleasant  to  withhold, — 

"  There  was  nothing  dramatic  in  the  life  of  Mr.  Giles,  neither  did 
he  pose  for  effect  before  the  world.  His  motives  and  purposes  were 
far  beyond  such  littleness.  His  purely  pastoral  life  can  be  com- 
pared to  the  smooth  flowing  of  a  brook  through  grassy  meadows 
and  flowering  shrubs.  The  turbulent  stream  from  the  mountain- 
side had  no  counterpart  in  his  nature.  This  phase  of  his  being  is 
beautifully  illustrated  by  his  writings :  classic  in  style,  apparently 
simple,  they  have  a  power  and  directness  which  go  to  the  very  core 


PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  k'XOU'LEDGE. 


of  his  subject,  sounding  deptlis  of  truth  brought  to  the  surface  by 
great  minds  only.  Dignity  and  self-control  governed  his  character, 
while  composure  and  gentleness  marked  his  daily  life  ;  add  grace 
and  a  quiet  humor  in  his  intercourse  with  others,  and  the  true 
gentleman  is  in  view.  The  world  is  the  better  for  his  living,  and 
the  New  Church  a  gainer  by  his  faith  and  love  for  her  doctrines, 
which  were  intense. 

"His  calmness  and  self-possession  may  be  illustrated  by  two  inci- 
dents in  his  New  York  pulpit.  The  usual  services  had  been  com- 
pleted, and  he  rose  up  to  deliver  his  sermon,  but  could  not  find  the 
manuscript ;  all  of  his  jiockets  were  explored  in  vain.  He  quietly 
left  the  desk,  went  to  his  house  a  square  off,  returned  with  the 
missing  manuscript,  and  delivered  a  very  able  sermon,  not  at  all 
disconcerted  by  the  singular  circumstance.  The  congregation 
waited  his  return  quietly,  but  with  a  bit  of  su])i)ressed  amusement. 

"On  another  Sunday  morning  the  congregation  had  assembled, 
the  time  had  arrived  for  the  service,  but  Mr.  Giles  had  not  been 
seen.  One  of  his  sons  was  sent  to  look  him  up.  He  was  found  in 
his  study  writing,  and  deep  in  thought ;  when  told  the  congregation 
was  waiting  his  presence,  'Bless  my  soul!'  was  the  reply.  His 
opening  words  at  the  service  betrayed  no  flurry  over  the  delay." 

It  wa.s  tlurinij  his  stay  in  New  York  that  Mr.  Giles 
delivered  in  the  church  on  Tliirty- Fifth  Street  his  lec- 
tures on  "  Our  Children  in  the  Other  Life."  They  were 
at  first  printed  as  leaflets,  and  have  now  for  many  years 
been  pul)lished  in  more  convenient  form.  They  are  full 
of  comfort.  With  the  tenderest  sympathy  they  lift  up 
the  thought  to  iieaven,  and  tell  of  the  homes  prepared 
l)y  the  Lord  for  -His  little  ones,  where,  secure  from  every 
danger,  they  develop  imder  angels'  care  in  the  eternal 
spring.  They  have  brought  consolation  to  thousands 
of  sorrowing  hearts. 

A  new  avenue  of  usefulness  was  opened  to  Mr.  Giles 
in  1865,  when  he  was  as.sociatcd  with  Mr.  Thomas 


CIIAUNCEY  GILES. 


45 


Hitchcock  in  the  editorial  charge  of  the  New-Jerusalem 
Messejigcr.  From  May  i,  1873,  to  January,  1878,  Mr. 
Giles  was  sole  editor.  He  was  also  editor  of  the  Chil- 
dreyi' s  New- Church  Magazine  from  1868  to  January  30, 
1872,  when  it  was  discontinued.  This  editorial  care 
added  greatly  to  his  labor.  There  is  no  more  exacting 
master  than  a  periodical,  which  must  be  ready  each  week 
on  time  whether  there  are  contributions  or  not,  whether 
one  is  sick  or  well.  Mr.  Giles  often  was  obliged  to  write 
a  considerable  part  of  the  paper  himself  and  for  a  time 
he  attended  also  to  the  details  of  proof-reading  and  the 
making  up  of  the  paper.  He  also  contributed  generously 
to  the  Children  s  Magaziyie,  and  told  to  a  wider  circle 
of  children  such  pleasant  and  instructive  stories  as  had 
been  enjoyed  by  his  Sunday-schools. 

In  1875,  while  Mr.  Giles  was  pastor  of  the  New  York 
Society,  he  was  elected  president  of  the  General  Con- 
vention of  the  New  Jerusalem  in  the  United  States,  suc- 
ceeding the  Rev.  Thomas  Worcester  ;  and  he  held  the 
position  until  his  death,  a  period  of  eighteen  years.  In 
the  general  body  of  the  church,  as  in  the  societies  with 
which  he  was  connected,  Mr.  Giles  was  a  warm  supporter 
of  practical  uses  and  a  leader  in  them.  The  missionary 
cause  was  especially  dear  to  him,  and  the  printing  and 
publishing  of  the  doctrines.  His  earnestness  in  the 
work  of  the  church,  his  confidence  in  the  support  of  the 
Divine  Providence,  and  in  the  ability  of  the  people  to 
supply  the  means  to  do  their  part,  were  inspiring,  and 
led  to  substantial  results.  Mr.  Giles's  annual  addresses 
as  president  of  the  Convention  presented  in  practical 
ways  the  principles  which  should  guide  the  church  in  its 


46         PKOGKESS  IX  SriRirrAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


work.  The  address  seemed  to  sound  the  key-note  of 
the  session,  and  it  was  a  note  of  harmony  and  practical 
usefulness.  His  very  earnestness  that  the  church  should 
be  at  work  actively  furthering  the  great  uses  intrusted 
to  it  made  Mr.  Giles  impatient  of  obstruction,  and  even 
of  parliamentary  forms,  when  they  seemed  to  retard  the 
uses  which  he  had  so  much  at  heart.  He  recognized 
this  quality  in  himself  as  a  defect  in  a  presiding  officer, 
and  it  was  his  custom  of  late  years  to  intrust  the  con- 
duct of  the  business  to  the  vice-president.  He  thought, 
however,  and  probably  with  truth,  that  his  own  ignorance 
of  rules  had  been  useful  to  the  church  in  leading  to  less 
regard  for  mere  technicalities.  Mr.  Giles's  presence 
always  seemed  to  give  deliberations  a  higher  tone,  and 
when  he  spoke  it  was  often  to  lift  discussion  above  minor 
difterences  to  the  more  spiritual  plane  of  use,  where  all 
could  unite,  and  where  the  light  of  heaven  shines.  Mr. 
Giles's  influence  in  public  meetings  and  at  all  times  was 
for  peace.  He  avoided  controversy,  especially  upon 
sacred  subjects,  usually  preferring  that  attacks  upon 
himself  or  his  views  should  go  unanswered.  He  bore 
no  malice  towards  those  who  opposed  him,  and  remem- 
bered nothing  against  tliem  when  they  showed  a  desire 
to  join  helpfully  in  the  common  work. 

The  same  year  that  Mr.  Giles  became  president  of  the 
Convention  he  made  his  first  trip  abroad.  He  landed  in 
Liverpool,  and,  after  some  pleasant  days  in  Scotland, 
went  to  London,  where  he  received  a  warm,  even  en- 
thusiastic, welcome  at  the  Argyle  Square  church.  He 
found  himself  at  once  among  friends,  for  his  sermons, 
and  especially  the  lectures  on  "The  Nature  of  Spirit" 


CIIA  UNCE  y  GIL  ES. 


47 


and  on  "The  Incarnation  and  Atonement,"  had  been 
widely  read  on  the  other  side  of  the  water.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  New  Church  in  England  were  glad  to  see 
and  hear  and  know  personally  one  whose  writings  they  so 
highly  valued.  Mr.  Giles  felt  very  deeply  the  kindness 
shown  him  on  this  and  subsequent  visits,  and  close  friend- 
ships were  formed  with  his  English  brethren.  Writing 
home  to  the  Messenger,  from  England,  he  once  said, — 

"  I  found  I  was  not  a  stranger.  I  could  not  make  myself  one. 
They  not  only  took  me  by  the  hand,  but  by  the  heart.  I  was  a 
friend  and  a  brother  and  at  home.  A  feeling  would  sometimes 
come  over  me  that  I  must  have  seen  them  and  known  them  before. 
I  hope  the  cordiality  of  my  welcome  and  the  impossibility  of  feeling 
that  I  was  among  strangers  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  great  law 
of  spiritual  association,  according  to  which  those  of  a  homogeneous 
nature  feel  as  though  they  had  always  known  one  another  when 
they  first  meet.  I  am  sure  I  shall  always  remember  their  kindness 
and  unremitting  eftbrts  to  make  my  visit  a  pleasant  one,  with  pro- 
found gratitude.  I  feel  that  I  have  been  greatly  benefited  by  my 
intercourse  with  them.  It  has  enlarged  the  horizon  of  my  thoughts 
and  affections,  and  enriched  my  mind  with  many  charming  scenes 
and  pleasant  memories,  which  will  be  a  comfort  and  delight  during 
my  whole  life." 

On  his  first  visit,  in  1875,  Mr.  Giles  attended  the  New- 
Church  Conference  in  Manchester,  as  the  official  mes- 
senger of  the  Convention,  and  received  the  kindest  hos- 
pitality. He  continued  his  journey  to  the  continent. 
Availing  himself  of  the  kind  escort  of  a  friend  to  Ger- 
many, he  afterwards  wandered  alone  into  Italy,  and, 
tempted  from  place  to  place,  feeling  that  this  was  prob- 
ably his  only  chance  to  see  the  historic  cities,  he  visited 
Venice  and  extended  his  journey  to  Rome,  seeing  some- 
thing of  Switzerland  and  Paris  before  his  return. 


48       PKOGRKSS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


But  the  first  trip  to  Europe  was  not  the  last.  Mr. 
Giles  visited  his  friends  across  the  Atlantic  five  times  in 
all.  In  1878,  which  was  the  summer  following  his  re- 
moval from  New  York  to  Philadelphia,  he  made  his 
second  voyage,  accompanied  by  his  wife  and  youngest 
son.  The  chief  mission  of  this  visit  was  to  the  New- 
Church  friends  in  Paris.  It  is  difficult  for  us  in  a  country 
where  religious  thought  and  expression  are  so  free,  to 
realize  the  discouragements  under  which  the  little  circle 
of  New-Churchmen  in  Paris  were  struggling,  oppressed 
by  the  influence  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  by  the 
government,  and  by  their  own  fears.  Mr.  Giles  was 
much  touched  by  their  position,  especially  by  the  noble 
and  untiring  efforts  of  Mile.  Holmes,  now  Mme.  Charles 
Humann.  He  secured  the  kind  offices  of  the  United 
States  government  and  obtained  a  letter  to  the  French 
government  from  President  Hayes,  testifying  to  the 
orderly  character  of  New-Churchmen  in  our  country, 
which  was  the  means  of  securing  permission  for  the 
little  circle  in  Paris  to  meet  for  worship  unmolested.  At 
this  visit  Mr.  Giles  assisted  in  the  organization  of  the 
Paris  Society,  addressing  them  through  an  interpreter. 
The  little  circle,  lonely,  timid,  and  oppressed,  received 
strength  and  hoj)e  from  Mr.  Giles,  with  his  free  Amer- 
ican .spirit,  and  his  sublime  confidence  in  the  truths  of 
the  New  Church  and  their  triumph  in  the  world.  There 
was  a  delay  of  several  weeks  in  receiving  the  necessary 
permission  of  the  government,  and  the  time  was  spent 
in  part  in  travel.  The  journey  included  a  trip  to  Scotlantl 
with  a  tleliglitful  visit  in  Paisley.  Mr.  Giles  was  again 
cordially  welcomed  in  London  ;  he  attended  the  Con- 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


49 


ference  in  Salford,  and  before  sailing  for  home  he  re- 
ceived the  warmest  expressions  of  affection  and  esteem 
in  Birmingham  and  Manchester. 

The  following  year  Mr.  Giles  again  made  a  vacation 
trip  to  England,  accompanied  by  one  of  his  sons.  The 
experiences  of  this  journey  are  fully  recorded  in  a  series 
of  interesting  letters  written  by  Mr.  Giles  to  the  Mes- 
senger. He  preached  on  the  steamer  on  the  outward 
voyage,  as  he  did  on  several  of  his  voyages,  and  this  time 
awakened  a  somewhat  remarkable  interest.  He  attended 
the  Conference  in  Dr.  Bayley's  church  in  London.  He 
visited  Paris  again,  and  encouraged  the  faithful  little 
group  of  New-Churchmen  in  that  city,  baptizing  some 
of  their  number.  Before  sailing  for  home  he  visited  the 
beautiful  church  lately  finished  at  Birmingham.  The  next 
year,  1880,  Mr.  Giles  crossed  again,  accompanied  by  Mrs. 
Giles,  and  they  enjoyed  many  pleasant  experiences  among 
their  new  and  old  friends  in  Birmingham  and  Manchester, 
and  attended  the  Conference  in  Liverpool.  The  journey 
was  extended  to  the  continent,  and  Mr.  Giles  visited  Mr. 
Mittnacht  in  Frankfort. 

The  last  trip  to  Europe  was  in  1883.  The  chief  pur- 
pose of  the  visit  was  to  dedicate  the  new  church  nearly 
completed  by  the  society  in  Paris.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Giles 
sailed  to  Antwerp.  Some  time  was  passed  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  where  Mr.  Giles  sought  relief  from  rheumatism 
by  using  the  hot  baths.  They  visited  England  and  found 
themselves  among  old  friends,  and  afterwards  crossed  to 
Paris,  where  the  new  church  was  dedicated  by  Mr.  Giles, 
assisted  by  the  Rev.  John  Presland,  of  London. 

These  visits  abroad,  which  were  enjoyed  through  the 


PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


kindness  of  a  friend,  gave  Mr.  Giles  rest  after  seasons  of 
hard  work,  and  the  memory  of  them  was  a  constant 
pleasure  to  him.  They  served  also  a  very  real  use  to  the 
church  in  England  and  America,  in  strengthening  the 
bonds  of  sympathy  between  its  branches. 

The  first  visit  abroad  was  made  while  Mr.  Giles  was 
pastor  of  the  New  York  Society,  but  before  his  second 
visit  he  had  removed  to  PhiladeljDhia.  In  performing  the 
double  duty  of  pastor  and  editor,  Mr.  Giles  worked  be- 
yond his  strength,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1877  he  was  very 
ill.  Before  his  health  was  fully  restored  he  received  an 
invitation  from  the  First  New -Jerusalem  Society  of  Phila- 
delphia to  become  its  pastor,  and  he  began  w-ork  in  the 
new  field  the  ist  of  January,  1878.  There  was  an  ap- 
parent lack  of  worldly  wisdom  in  the  change.  The  society 
in  Philadelphia  had  been  through  hard  experiences,  and 
at  this  time  was  weak  and  distracted  by  conflicting  ele- 
ments. Its  most  earnest  and  devoted  members  were 
discouraged,  and  many  persons  who  were  stanch  be- 
lievers in  the  New-Church  doctrines  held  aloof  from  the 
society.  There  was  little  interest  in  the  public  worship, 
and  the  means  to  support  it  were  raised  with  difficulty. 
Of  this  society  Mr.  Giles  was  in\  ited  to  become  pastor, 
at  a  salary  much  less  than  he  was  receiving  in  New  York. 
Why  did  he  accept  ?  "  Because,"  to  use  his  own  words, 
' '  I  had  an  assured  feeling,  that  amounted  to  a  certainty, 
that  it  was  a  call  of  the  Divine  Providence,  to  do  a  work 
for  the  New  Church  which  I  could  do  in  no  other  way. 
I  had  no  expectation  of  doing  anything  more  than  help 
you  to  become  more  united  and  work  together  more 
harmoniously  and  efficiently  for  your  own  spiritual  good 


CIIAUNCEY  GILES.  51 

and  the  prosperity  of  the  church.  But  so  sure  was  I  that 
it  was  a  call  from  a  higher  source  than  your  society,  that 
I  had  no  doubt,  and  no  hesitation  in  accepting  it."  Mr. 
Giles  also  had  in  mind  some  books  which  he  had  not 
found  leisure  in  New  York  to  put  on  paper. 

What  Mr.  Giles  hoped  for  in  coming  to  Philadelphia 
he  saw  accomplished,  and  much  more.  But  he  was  far 
from  taking  credit  to  himself  It  was  the  Lord's  work, 
and  if  he  was  the  leader  in  it,  he  was  supported  by  faith- 
ful, devoted  helpers,  without  whom  nothing  could  have 
been  done. 

It  is  useful  to  notice  the  more  important  steps  by  which 
harmony  and  active  life  grew  in  the  society.  A  begin- 
ning must  be  made.  It  chanced  to  be  the  decoration  of 
the  windows  of  the  church  which  the  society  then  occu- 
pied, on  the  corner  of  Broad  and  Brandy  wine  Streets. 
Next  the  purcliase  of  a  new  organ  was  undertaken,  with 
many  misgivings.  "  The  difficulties  of  paying  for  it,"  to 
use  Mr.  Giles's  words,  "were  not  overestimated.  The 
whole  machinery  and  all  the  motive  power  of  the  society 
were  brought  into  requisition  to  raise  the  money.  We 
had  suppers  and  sales,  strawberry  festivals  and  concerts 
and  lectures  until  every  one  was  weary  of  them,  and  al- 
most of  the  organ  itself,  which  began  to  remind  us  of  the 
necessity  for  renewed  effort  to  pay  for  the  music.  I  think 
the  movement  was  useful  to  the  society.  It  was  move- 
ment, and  that  of  itself  was  worth  more  than  the  organ. 
It  awakened  a  more  general  interest  in  the  society,  brought 
its  members  together  and  gave  them  some  practice  in 
working  together,  and  prepared  them  to  take  another 
step  when  the  time  came  for  it." 


FROGI^ESS  JN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


When  ISIr.  Giles  had  been  in  Philadelphia  a  year  the 
society  recast  its  by-laws,  providing  for  quarterly  business 
meetings,  and  for  a  Church  Committee  of  nine  members, 
who  should  meet  weekly  with  the  pastor,  to  care  for  the 
spiritual  welfare  of  the  society.  In  the  Church  Committee 
almost  every  new  movement  originated,  and  was  carefully 
considered  before  being  presented  to  the  society.  Mr. 
Giles  kept  the  committee  on  the  alert  to  find  new  and 
better  ways  for  the  society  to  do  its  work.  It  must  move 
on,  it  must  improve,  or  it  would  go  backward.  The 
freest  expression  of  opinion  was  encouraged  in  the  com- 
mittee, but  its  members  learned  to  differ  kindly,  and  to 
set  aside  personal  preferences  for  the  good  of  the  society. 
The  same  spirit  extended  to  the  larger  body.-  No  im- 
portant step  was  taken  in  the  committee  or  in  the  society 
till  it  could  be  taken  with  practical  unanimity. 

In  the  autumn  of  1879  the  New  Church  in  Philadelphia 
came  into  unexpected  prominence.  It  had  already  been 
found  that  Mr.  Giles's  lectures  attracted  larger  audiences 
than  the  church  building  could  well  accommodate,  and  in 
opening  the  autumn  course  it  was  decided  to  secure  the 
hall  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  where 
Mr.  Giles  had  once  before  lectured.  Unexpectedly  the 
hall  was  refused  on  the  ground  that  the  New  Church  is 
not  "evangelical."  The  first  lecture  of  the  proposed 
series,  on  "Spiritual  Death,"  was  accordingly  advertised 
to  be  given  in  the  church,  though  the  advertisement  re- 
ferred to  the  disappointment  in  not  obtaining  the  hall. 
Dr.  E.  L.  Magoon,  pastor  of  the  Baptist  Church  at  Broad 
and  Brown  Streets,  generously,  and  not  without  bringing 
censure  upon  himself,  offered  Mr.  Giles  his  church.  He 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


53 


put  his  offer  in  writing,  and  with  characteristic  bluntness 
addressed  Mr.  Giles  as  "My  dear  F"ellovv-Sinner, "  say- 
ing, ' '  They  may  deny  that  you  are  evangelical,  but  they 
will  admit  that  we  are  all  sinners. ' '  The  newspapers  of 
the  city  published  the  incident  widely,  which  gave  op- 
portunity to  make  it  generally  known  that  "the  doc- 
trines held  by  Swedenborgians  are  evangelical  in  the 
sense  of  affirming  and  teaching  the  supreme  and  sole 
Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  absolute  dependence  of 
every  one  upon  Him  for  salvation  ;  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  faith  in  Him  as  the  Redeemer,  Regenerator,  and 
Saviour  of  men  ;  and  the  verbal  and  plenary  inspiration 
of  the  Sacred  Scriptures."  Dr.  Magoon's  church  was 
crowded  to  overflowing  on  two  Sunday  evenings  to  hear 
Mr.  Giles.  It  was  impossible  to  invite  the  crowds  now 
attracted  to  the  lectures  to  the  little  church  at  Broad  and 
Brandywine  Streets,  and  the  course  was  continued  in  the 
Horticultural  Hall,  then  the  largest  hall  in  the  city.  It 
needed  a  strong  voice  to  fill  the  hall,  and  a  clear  pres- 
entation of  the  truth  to  hold  the  attention  of  the  in- 
creasing audiences  which  gathered  to  hear.  But  Mr. 
Giles  was  fully  equal  to  the  occasion. 

The  same  winter  Mr.  Giles  delivered  in  the  church  a 
series  of  discourses  on  "  The  Garden  of  Eden,"  and  the 
house  was  overcrowded  throughout  the  course.  These 
were  followed  by  another  series  of  discourses  upon  the 
Lord,  beginning  with  one  entitled  "Who  was  Jesus 
Christ?"  delivered  April  4,  1880.  We  note  the  subject 
and  the  date,  because  in  connection  with  this  lecture  a 
new  step  was  taken,  which,  though  small  in  itself,  led  to 
great  results. 

5* 


FROGi^ESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


In  a  Church  Committee  meeting  Mr.  Giles  asked  what 
new  work  could  be  thought  of  to  extend  the  influence  of 
the  society,  and  keep  the  interest  of  its  members  awake 
and  active.  He  mentioned  the  plan  of  publishing  a  few 
discourses  from  week  to  week  as  they  were  delivered, 
which  seemed  to  work  well  and  to  be  useful  in  New  York. 
Mr.  T.  S.  Arthur  said,  "Let  us  try  it  for  two  or  three 
weeks  at  least."  It  was  done,  and  the  first  discourse 
printed  was  the  one  named,  of  which  many  thousands 
have  since  been  distributed.  From  that  time  it  became 
a  custom  with  the  society  to  publish  Mr.  Giles's  discourse 
of  one  Sunday  for  distribution  the  next  Sunday.  Hun- 
dreds were  taken  away  each  week,  and  some  persons 
who  did  not  attend  the  church  received  them  regularly. 
The  members  of  the  society  made  it  their  duty  to  dis- 
tribute the  sermons  wherever  they  might  be  useful. 

The  large  attendance  to  hear  Mr.  Giles  was  meantime 
suggesting  the  necessity  of  a  new  and  larger  church. 
Reminding  the  people  some  years  later  of  the  beginning 
of  this  movement,  Mr.  Giles  said,  "None  of  you  will 
forget  how  impossible  of  accomplishment  it  seemed  at 
first  to  almost  every  member  of  the  society.  It  was  too 
absurd  to  consider  for  a  moment.  There  was  not  sufii- 
cient  money  in  the  society  to  do  it.  Those  who  put  the 
mildest  construction  on  the  idea  regarded  it  as  most 
visionary  and  impractical,  and  if  it  had  been  pressed  at 
first  with  any  degree  of  pertinacity  it  would  have  been 
promptly  rejected.  But  the  seed  was  quietly  planted 
and  bc.san  to  grow." 

By  the  ist  of  June,  1881,  a  lot  had  been  bought,  and 
March  11,  1883,  the  church  at  the  corner  of  Twenty- 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


55 


second  and  Chestnut  Streets,  now  occupied  by  the  Phila- 
delphia Society,  was  dedicated.  It  is  a  beautiful  church 
of  ample  size,  with  a  connecting  building  in  which  are  a 
cheerful  Sunday-school  room  and  parlors  and  library  and 
book-room.  The  whole,  when  finished,  cost  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  there  was  prac- 
tically no  debt  upon  it  at  its  dedication.  Still  better  than 
this  was  the  harmony  which  prevailed  throughout  the 
work.    Mr.  Giles  writes, — 

"  There  were  differences  of  opinion  about  some  minor  matters  of 
detail,  but  they  were  amicably  adjusted  to  the  general  satisfaction 
of  all.  It  is  said  that  no  workman  in  the  erection  of  the  buildings 
was  seriously  injured.  The  same  can  be  said  of  the  feelings  of  the 
members  of  the  society.  It  is  not  often  that  so  large  and  important 
an  enterprise  is  carried  to  completion  with  so  little  friction  and  with 
such  apparent  ease  and  general  satisfaction." 

The  success  in  raising  the  large  sum  of  money  was  due 
largely  to  Mr.  Giles's  teaching  that  we  are  stewards  of 
the  Lord's  goods,  which  it  is  a  duty  and  privilege  to  use 
for  the  best  interests  of  His  kingdom.  The  money  for 
the  church  was  more  cheerfully  and  probably  more  easily 
raised  than  the  money  for  an  organ  had  been  a  few  years 
before.  The  harmonious  spirit  of  the  work  was  also  due 
largely  to  Mr.  Giles's  wisdom.  When  small  differences 
arose  he  laid  personal  preferences  aside,  and  helped  the 
society  to  decide  every  question  on  the  ground  of  use. 
Should  there  be  one  reading-desk  or  two  ?  Mr.  Giles 
was  here  to  preach  the  truth  ;  he  would  do  it  from  a 
music-stand  if  need  be.  Let  not  any  trifling  external 
thing  cause  the  great  spiritual  use  to  be  forgotten. 

In  a  little  more  than  five  years  Mr.  Giles  had  brought 


56        PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


the  Philadelphia  Society  from  a  state  of  discord  and  in- 
activity to  one  of  harmony  and  usefulness.  It  had  left  a 
small  and  unattractive  church  for  one  commodious  and 
beautiful.  It  had  become  known  and  influential  in  the 
city.  And  not  in  the  city  alone.  A  characteristic  of 
Mr.  Giles,  to  which  some  members  of  the  society  attrib- 
ute its  prosperity  under  his  care  more  than  to  any  other, 
was  his  desire  to  reach  out  to  help  others  besides  our- 
selves. He  recognized  it  as  a  law  of  life  and  growth  that 
what  we  have  must  not  be  enjoyed  selfishly  :  it  must  be 
passed  on  for  the  blessing  of  others. 

Mr.  Giles  saw  great  value  in  the  library  and  reading- 
room  connected  with  the  church,  and  did  all  that  he 
could  to  develop  their  usefulness.  Here  members  of  the 
congregation  and  strangers  could  find  New-Church  books 
and  tracts  ;  and  here  they  could  meet  for  study  and  vari- 
ous church  interests  through  the  week.  The  uses  of  the 
book-room  were  organized  under  the  name  of  the  New- 
Church  Book  Association  of  Philadelphia,  of  which  Mr. 
Giles  was  made  president.  The  work  of  the  American 
New-Church  Tract  and  Publication  Society  was  also 
transferred  to  these  rooms,  and  Mr.  Giles  rejoiced  to  see 
its  increasing  business  giving  regular  employment  to 
many  of  the  young  people  of  the  church.  These  active 
uses  he  saw  would  do  much  to  strengthen  the  love  for 
the  church  and  to  e.xtend  the  influence  of  Sunday  through 
the  week. 

The  Tract  Society  had  been  organized  in  1865,  some 
years  before  Mr.  Giles  came  to  Philadelphia.  And 
through  the  generous  co-operation  of  the  publishing 
house  of  J.  B.  Lippincott  &  Co.,  at  a  time  when  the 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


57 


works  of  Swedenborg  were  almost  unknown  to  the  pub- 
lic, and  were  regarded  with  prejudice  by  religious 
teachers,  the  society  had  done  a  great  use  in  publishing 
the  books  in  handsome  form  through  the  usual  channels 
of  trade.  Mr.  Giles  was  connected  with  the  society  from 
the  time  of  his  coming  to  Philadelphia,  and  upon  the 
death  of  Mr.  T.  S.  Arthur,  in  1885,  he  became  its  presi- 
dent. During  the  years  of  his  association  with  the  so- 
ciety, and  largely  through  his  influence,  its  work  greatly 
increased,  especially  in  the  publication  and  distribution 
of  tracts.  The  printing  of  Mr.  Giles's  sermons  from 
week  to  week  led  to  a  regular  weekly  distribution 
through  the  mails,  \\hich  in  time  became  so  large  that 
in  1888,  for  convenience  and  economy,  the  tracts  were 
given  the  form  of  a  periodical,  with  the  title  of  The 
Helper.  The  work  continued  to  grow,  till  a  recent  re- 
port of  the  Tract  Society  showed  an  average  distribution 
of  Helpers  and  other  tracts  for  the  year  of  over  one  thou- 
sand a  day.  The  publication  of  books  was  meantime  not 
neglected.  In  all  this  work  Mr.  Giles  was  the  leader. 
He  always  advocated  printing  as  the  most  economical 
and  effective  means  of  reaching  the  public,  and  did  much 
to  awaken  the  church  to  the  importance  of  this  mode  of 
teaching.  In  recording  their  appreciation  of  Mr.  Giles's 
service  in  its  work,  the  managers  of  the  Tract  Society 
said,  "He  has  furnished  the  most  useful  sermons  and 
lectures  and  books  for  publication  ;  he  has,  by  his  broad 
sympathies  and  by  his  knowledge  of  the  church  through- 
out our  country  and  abroad,  done  more  than  any  other 
to  lift  the  society's  work  above  mere  local  uses  to  such 
as  are  of  service  to  the  church  at  large.     His  annual  re- 


58       PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


ports,  so  full  of  love  for  the  cause  and  of  confidence  in 
its  success,  have  called  forth  a  general  co-operation  in 
the  work  of  the  society,  till  it  now  has  friends  and  sup- 
porters wherever  the  New  Church  is  known." 

The  last  years  of  Mr.  Giles's  ministry  were  passed  with 
the  Philadelphia  Society,  who  were  his  devoted  friends 
and  his  faithful  helpers  in  every  enterprise.  As  his 
physical  strength  grew  less  with  advancing  years,  he 
felt  the  need  of  a  helper  in  his  work.  In  May,  1885,  the 
present  writer  was  called,  and  for  eight  years  and  a  half 
was  his  assistant  and  a  member  of  his  family.  Mr.  Giles's 
kindness  in  this  relation  was  most  generous  and  abso- 
lutely unfailing.  He  gave  wise  counsel,  yet  allowed  the 
fullest  freedom.  He  was  patient  with  shortcomings,  and 
was  always  ready  with  sympathy  and  encouragement. 

For  some  years  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Giles  spent  their  sum- 
mer vacations  at  Lake  George,  in  New  York  State. 
Comfortably  housed  in  "The  Sagamore,"  Mr.  Giles  en- 
joyed the  society  of  friends  who  had  cottages  near  by, 
or  who  came  and  went  among  the  summer  guests.  The 
hotel  stands  on  an  island  in  the  lake.  The  green  lawn 
which  slopes  to  the  water  is  shaded  by  forest  foliage, 
through  which  the  sunshine  falls  upon  the  grass  and  white 
birch  stems.  Across  the  water  rise  wooded  mountains, 
and  in  the  lake  are  islands  crowned  with  forest  trees 
which  dip  their  overhanging  branches.  The  air  is  cool, 
and  the  scene  one  of  peaceful  beauty.  Mr.  Giles  rested 
in  the  shade  or  enjoyed  a  drive  over  the  hills  with  friends  ; 
or  he  would  row  out  into  the  lake,  and,  fastening  his 
boat  to  an  overhanging  tree,  spend  an  hour  in  reading. 
He  wrote  long  and  careful  letters  to  his  friends,  full  of 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


59 


the  peaceful  beauty  of  his  surroundings,  and  including, 
as  his  letters  always  did,  uplifting,  encouraging  thoughts. 

Sunday  frequently  gave  opportunity  for  the  work  he 
loved.  Service,  for  some  seasons,  was  held  in  the  woods 
near  the  hotel,  where  the  tree-trunks  and  arching  branches 
were  the  cathedral  columns  and  roof,  and  the  squirrels 
listened  with  the  audience.  In  later  years,  services  were 
held  in  a  room  of  the  hotel,  and  Mr.  Giles  took  his  turn 
with  other  ministers. 

The  enjoyment  of  natural  beauty  was  very  deep  with 
Mr.  Giles.  It  was  to  him  not  merely  natural  beauty,  but 
he  saw  in  everything  tokens  of  the  Lord's  love  and  wis- 
dom. This  habit  of  thought,  which  grew  with  every 
year,  had  much  to  do  with  the  ready  illustration  of  spir- 
itual truth  by  objects  and  phenomena  of  nature,  which 
added  so  much  of  clearness  and  beauty  to  his  preaching. 
He  delighted  also,  as  he  looked  upon  the  flowers  or  the 
ripening  fruit,  to  think,  "  The  Lord  is  doing  this  for  me 
to-day.  See  His  love  and  wisdom  working  before  my 
very  eyes." 

On  an  August  day,  in  his  quiet  retreat,  Mr.  Giles  wrote 
in  his  journal, — 

"  Another  of  those  calm,  sweet,  peaceful,  and  lovely  Sabbath  days. 
A  perfect  type  of  peace  and  heaven.  I  have  never  seen  such  days 
anywhere  else.  There  are  quiet  and  bright  days  everywhere.  But 
here  are  so  many  concomitants,  so  many  things  that  conspire  to  the 
same  end.  The  lake  sleeping  and  gently  breathing  in  the  bosom  of 
the  hills.  The  hills,  steadfast  and  quiet  in  their  strength,  looking 
down  and  smiling  upon  the  lake.  The  trees  that  stand  as  sentinels 
to  guard  the  islands  and  lawns,  and  with  tlieir  shade  and  beauty 
make  secluded  places  for  the  people  to  sit  and  muse  and  let  the 
beauty  of  the  earth  and  the  glory  of  the  heavens  melt  into  the  soul. 


6o 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


The  fleecy,  gently-moving  clouds  whose  motion  suggests  peaceful 
rest.    All  nature  suggests  harmony,  innocence,  and  peace." 

One  July  day  he  wrote, — 

"  The  ground  is  covered  with  the  blossoms  of  the  chestnut-trees. 
The  workmen  are  raking  them  off,  and  they  make  quite  a  windrow. 
They  have  done  their  work,  and  now  they  pass  away  and  cease  to 
hinder  the  work  of  forming  the  fruit.  Is  it  not  so  with  the  natural 
facts,  the  material  ideas,  in  the  growth  of  our  own  minds  and  in 
every  deed  we  do?  We  gain  the  reason,  the  way  of  doing  things. 
We  learn  facts  ;  we  arrange  and  compare  them,  and  use  them  in 
accomplishing  our  work.  But  when  we  begin  to  work  our  mind  is 
not  occupied  with  the  reason,  but  with  the  work.  The  natural  ideas 
and  reasons  have  faded  away,  and  are  set  aside.  The  same  prin- 
ciple applies  to  the  decay  of  the  material  body.  It  is  a  blossom 
which  performs  an  essential  service,  and  when  it  has  finished  its  use, 
when  it  has  done  all  it  can  for  us,  it  fades  and  falls  away,  and  leaves 
us  free  from  its  encumbrance.  'We  all  do  fade  as  a  leaf  In  this 
way  we  can  see  in  nature  as  in  a  perfect  mirror  the  principles  and 
the  methods  of  Infinite  Wisdom  in  accomplishing  His  purposes.  The 
Lord  is  continually  working  out  the  problems  of  life  before  our  eyes." 

Equally  beautiful  thoughts  of  the  Lord's  ever-present 
love  were  suggested  by  the  white  summer  clouds  : 

"  They  moved  so  gently,  and  their  soft  edges,  bright  with  the  glory 
of  the  sun,  melted  into  each  other  so  tenderly,  that  they  seemed  the 
perfect  type  of  peace.  I  like  to  think  that  the  Lord  is  doing  all  this. 
He  is  in  all  His  works.  His  tender  mercies  are  over  all  His  works. 
How  different  nature  looks  when  we  regard  it  as  what  the  Lord  is 
doing  now  !" 

It  was  a  trial  to  Mr.  Giles  to  spend  weeks  and  months 
of  every  year  in  what  seemed  useless  idleness.  But  he 
found  comfort  in  the  reflection  that  our  spiritual  growth, 
like  the  growth  of  a  tree,  is  gentle  and  unconscious.  It 
must  have  its  times  of  rest  : 


CHAUNCRY  GILES. 


6i 


"  If  a  tree  could  keep  a  daily  record  of  its  life,  what  could  it  say? 
'  A  day  of  sunshine.  I  felt  warm  and  comfortable.  A  pleasant  breeze 
moved  my  leaves  and  sent  a  gentle  thrill  through  my  body.  But  I 
have  done  nothing  but  breathe  and  e.vist.  I  do  not  see  that  I  have 
done  any  good  or  gained  any  strength.  Some  children  did  come 
and  play  in  my  shade,  and  a  lady  remarked  how  tall  and  beautiful  I 
was.  So  by  the  silent  growth  of  many  years  I  have  been  able  to 
perform  some  use.'  So  it  must  be  with  men.  They  are  collecting 
the  natural  and  spiritual  substances  which  the  Lord  forms  into  ves- 
sels for  the  reception  of  life  from  Him." 

The  peaceful  beauty  of  the  mild  summer  days  con- 
stantly turned  Mr.  Giles's  thoughts  to  the  land  of  eternal 
spring.    Again  and  again  he  spoke  of  it  : 

"  How  beautiful  it  will  be  to  live  where  the  climate  is  exactly 
suited  to  our  tastes,  where  the  restraints  of  time  and  space  and  a 
suffering  body  are  removed,  and  there  is  the  freest  opportunity  for 
the  development  and  exercise  of  every  good  affection  !  And  that 
life  is  eternal,  everlasting !  The  spiritual  world  grows  nearer  and 
more  substantial  every  day.  The  idea  is  overwhelming.  To  live 
forever!  To  find  employment  and  the  means  of  happiness,  an  em- 
ployment which  does  not  weary,  and  which  is  a  constant  source  of 
ever-increasing  delight !  Can  it  be  possible  !  How  good  and  mer- 
ciful the  Lord  must  be  !  Why  am  I  not  more  grateful  ?  Why  does 
not  my  heart  open  to  His  love?  Why  am  I  not  more  devoted  to  His 
service?  I  am  old  and  weak,  and  yet  I  might  do  more.  I  must 
do  more." 

Rheumatism  had  caused  Mr.  Giles  almost  constant 
pain  for  many  years.  In  the  winter  of  1890-91  he  ex- 
perienced for  some  weeks  extreme  suffering.  Twice 
within  a  few  years  a  slip  on  the  ice  resulted  in  serious  in- 
juries. But,  in  spite  of  suffering  and  advancing  years, 
Mr.  Giles  retained  remarkable  strength  and  vigor.  As 
late  as  November,  1889,  he  made  a  missionary  trip  to 
Savannah  and  Jacksonville,  and  the  meeting  of  the  Con- 

6 


62       PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

vention  in  1893  was  the  first  at  which  he  was  unable  to 
be  present  and  take  an  active  part. 

Mr.  Giles  observed  the  failure  of  his  physical  powers 
not  wholly  with  sadness,  though  it  was  a  sore  trial  to  him 
to  give  up  any  useful  work.  It  was  interesting  to  him  to 
study  the  gradual  process  by  which  one  is  withdrawn 
from  the  natural  world.  ' '  A  man  is  born  into  the  world 
gradually,"  he  would  say,  "  by  the  development  of  his 
natural  senses  and  faculties  through  many  years.  So  he 
dies  by  the  gradual  closing  of  the  means  of  communica- 
tion with  the  outward  world. ' '  He  noticed  the  increasing 
difficulty  of  remembering  words  and  bits  of  knowledge, 
and  saw  that  in  writing  he  could  draw  only  from  that 
which  had  become,  as  it  were,  a  part  of  his  life.  He  felt 
that  he  was  gradually  coming  into  the  state  which  be- 
longs to  the  spiritual  world,  where  the  external  memory 
is  closed  and  one  retains  only  what  has,  by  his  living  it, 
become  a  part  of  himself 

It  was  impossible  for  Mr.  Giles  to  be  idle.  He  was 
very  industrious,  and  his  heart  was  in  his  work.  He 
studied  and  wrote  as  much  as  he  was  able,  sometimes  all 
day  continuously,  and  for  a  few  moments  at  a  time  when 
he  could  not  longer  hold  his  mind  to  the  work.  He 
sometimes  set  himself  a  stent,  to  do  so  much  each  day. 
In  the  winter  of  1889-90  he  wrote  the  little  book,  "Why 
I  am  a  New-Churchman,"  in  which  he  tried,  by  refer- 
ence to  his  personal  experience,  to  show  others  what 
blessing  may  be  found  in  the  truths  of  the  New  Church. 
The  book  was  useful,  but  perhaps  would  have  been  more 
so  if  he  had  not  through  modesty  made  the  personal 
references  so  brief    Some  of  Mr.  Giles's  earlier  books 


CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


63 


we  have  mentioned.  "The  Nature  of  Spirit,"  "Our 
Children  in  the  Other  Life,"  and  "The  Incarnation 
and  Atonement"  were  among  those  pubHshed  while 
he  was  in  New  York.  "Heavenly  Blessedness,"  pub- 
lished in  England,  is  a  series  of  sermons  upon  the  beati- 
tudes, which  I  believe  were  delivered  in  Cincinnati. 
' '  The  Second  Coming  of  the  Lord' '  and  ' '  Perfect 
Prayer,"  a  series  of  discourses  on  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
were  published  soon  after  coming  to  Philadelphia. 
"Evolution"  is  a  course  of  lectures  delivered  in  Phila- 
delphia, showing  the  origin  of  creation  and  development 
to  be  from  above  and  within.  "The  Forgiveness  of 
Sin,"  a  study  of  the  passage  in  Luke  describing  the 
anointing  of  the  Lord's  feet,  was  among  the  later  books. 
"Why  I  am  a  New-Churchman"  followed,  and  "Conso- 
lation," a  message  of  comfort  to  the  bereaved.  To  these 
must  be  added  five  volumes  of  children's  stories, — "  The 
Valley  of  Diamonds,"  "The  Gate  of  Pearl,"  "The 
Wonderful  Pocket,"  "The  Magic  Shoes,"  and  "The 
Magic  Spectacles," — and  sermons  and  lectures  printed 
separately,  some  three  hundred  in  number.  There  were 
also  left  in  manuscript  about  five  hundred  and  eighty  un- 
published discourses.  From  these  the  chapters  of  the 
present  book  have  been  selected  ;  other  series  of  dis- 
courses may  also  be  published  as  small  volumes. 

Mr.  Giles  was  permitted  to  continue  his  active  useful- 
ness almost  to  the  end  of  his  earthly  life.  In  the  autumn 
of  1892,  on  his  return  from  Lake  George,  he  began  a 
course  of  lectures  on  death  and  the  spiritual  world,  which 
were  the  last  discourses  that  he  delivered.  On  the  20th 
of  November  he  spoke  extempore  on  "The  World 


64       PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


of  Spirits,"  the  introductory  state  of  the  other  hfe,  and 
he  was  not  again  able  to  preach.  He,  however,  per- 
formed several  services  at  the  church  and  at  his  home 
during  the  following  winter.  Easter  Sunday,  April  2, 
he  was  present  at  church,  and  we  find  the  note  in  his 
journal, — 

"I  confirmed  ten  young  ladies  this  morning.  It  was  an  inter- 
esting sight.  The  Holy  Supper  was  administered  to  over  two  hun- 
dred communicants,  the  largest  number  who  ever  partook  of  it  at 
one  time  in  our  church,  e.xcept  at  some  meeting  of  the  General  Con- 
vention.   I  am  very  thankful  that  I  was  able  to  administer  it." 

The  last  entry  in  his  record  of  official  acts  is  under  date 
of  May  12,  when  he  baptized  a  little  child  in  his  study. 
It  was  the  day  after  his  eightieth  birthday,  and  the  flowers 
which  decorated  the  room  in  honor  of  the  anniversary 
added  to  the  beauty  of  the  simple  and  impressive  service. 

From  time  to  time  during  the  winter  and  spring,  as  he 
had  strength  and  relief  from  suffering,  Mr.  Giles  worked 
upon  the  little  book,  "Consolation,"  in  the  desire  to 
share  with  others  the  bright  thoughts  of  death  and  heaven 
and  the  confidence  in  the  Lord's  eternal  mercy  by  which 
he  was  sustained.  As  he  received  expressions  of  grati- 
tude from  friends  and  strangers  for  the  help  they  had 
found  in  his  preaching  and  writing,  he  felt  sincerely  that 
it  was  the  Lord's  doing,  and  was  amazed  that  the  Lord 
had  been  able  to  make  him  an  instrument  in  His  work 
of  comforting  and  saving  human  souls.  His  cheerful- 
ness and  the  pleasant  humor  which  had  always  helped 
to  lighten  care  for  himself  and  others  were  unfailing. 

The  summer  came,  and  Mr.  Giles  was  not  able  to  go 
to  Lake  George,  but  remained  at  home  in  Philadelphia. 


CHA  L  WCE  V  GILES. 


65 


He  grew  gradually  more  helpless  in  body,  though  his 
mind  was  clear.  He  had  known  for  some  years  that  his 
heart  was  weak  and  irregular  in  its  action,  and  he  ex- 
pected that  when  he  passed  away  from  the  natural  body 
it  would  be  suddenly.  "I  think  I  can  see  signs  of  it 
that  are  unmistakable,"  he  wrote  in  April,  1891.  "That 
will  be  pleasant.  I  can  conceive  of  no  way  in  which  the 
transition  could  be  more  natural  or  more  easily  made. 
But  it  will  be  as  the  Lord  pleases,  and  not  as  I  will." 

Contrary  to  his  expectation  and  hope,  the  failure  of 
physical  strength  was  very  gradual.  It  was  at  first  hard 
for  Mr.  Giles  to  be  waited  on,  but  with  wonderful  patience 
he  learned  to  intrust  himself  wholly  to  the  Lord  and  to 
those  about  him.  He  became  truly  as  a  little  child,  and 
"of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  God."  The  interest  in 
things  outside  of  himself,  especially  in  the  church,  was 
always  active.  On  Sunday  morning,  the  day  before  his 
death,  greetings  were  received  by  telegram  from  the 
Boston  Society,  which  was  holding  anniversary  meetings. 
He  heard  the  message  with  interest,  and  desired  a  reply 
to  be  sent.  Mr.  Giles  counted  it  as  one  of  the  blessings 
of  his  illness  that  it  brought  about  him  his  children.  He 
had  four  sons  and  two  daughters,  all  married  and  away 
from  home.  It  gave  him  delight  in  his  extreme  weak- 
ness to  remember  the  Lord's  assurance  that  He  gives 
His  angels  charge  over  us  to  keep  us.  ' '  The  Lord 
needs  means  and  instruments  in  caring  for  us,"  he  would 
say.  ' '  My  children  and  the  good  friends  about  me  are 
His  angels  on  the  natural  plane."  If  now  and  then  he 
felt  himself  impatient  for  release,  he  would  stop  and  count 
his  blessings,  and  say,  ' '  What  am  I  that  I  should  long 
e  6* 


66       PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


for  something  better  ;  that  I  should  feel  that  this  world 
is  not  good  enough  for  me  ?    I  am  ready  now  to  go  or 
stay,  in  the  Lord's  own  time,  as  He  wills."    On  the 
6th  of  November,  1893,  he  passed  quietly  away. 
Mr.  Giles  himself  once  wrote, — 

"  Death,  blessed,  lovely  death,  opens  the  prison  doors  to  the  soul, 
breaks  off  our  chains,  and  with  gentle  hand  and  smiling  face  leads 
from  this  land  of  night  and  storms,  from  this  cold,  inhospitable,  des- 
ert land  to  a  bright,  eternal  home ;  a  home  in  which  we  shall  find 
those  who  love  us  ;  a  home  to  rest  in,  a  beautiful,  lovely  home  to  live 
in,  to  love  in,  to  find  free  pla}'  for  every  faculty,  ample  means  for 
the  gratification  of  every  heavenly  taste  and  the  attainment  of  every 
heavenly  purpose.    This  is  the  blessedness  to  which  death  leads  us. 

"  He  is  the  most  loving,  gentle,  and  beautiful  of  the  angels.  He 
comes  to  cherish,  not  to  destroy ;  to  transplant,  not  to  kill ;  to 
awaken  us  from  sleep,  and  lead  us  into  life." 

/ 

William  L.  Worcester. 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


"  I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  unto  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear 
them  now. 

"  Hozvbcit  ivhen  he,  the  Spirit  of  truth,  is  come,  he  ivill  guide 
you  into  all  truth :  .  .  .  and  he  will  show  you  things  to  come." 
— John  xvi.  12,  13. 

T  N  these  words  our  Lord  teaches  us  a  lesson  which  has 
a  most  important  bearing  upon  the  condition  of  the 
human  mind  which  is  unfavorable  to  all  progress  in 
knowledge.  We  are  constantly  tempted  to  mistake  the 
limits  of  our  knowledge  for  the  limits  of  the  truth.  The 
more  ignorant  men  are,  the  greater  the  temptation  to  do 
it.  It  requires  some  knowledge  to  discover  our  own  ig- 
norance. Scientific  men  were  much  more  disposed  in 
former  times,  when  there  was  but  little  knowledge  of 
nature,  to  be  dogmatic,  and  to  claim  that  they  had 
reached  the  summit  of  knowledge  and  had  explored  all 
the  secrets  of  nature,  than  they  are  now. 

We  see  the  most  remarkable  exhibition  of  this  tendency 
in  the  disposition  to  limit  knowledge  upon  the  most  im- 
portant subjects  of  human  interest,  to  what  has  already 
been  attained,  to  what  was  attained,  we  might  say,  cen- 
turies ago.  The  belief  among  Christians  is  almost  uni- 
versal that  we  have  reached  the  limits  of  our  knowledge 
of  spiritual  truth  ;  that  no  further  progress  is  possible 
while  we  remain  in  this  world  ;  that  the  doctrines  of 

67 


68        rA:OG/^£SS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


Christianity,  as  they  are  accepted  and  understood  in  the 
SQ-called  evangelical  churches,  are  absolute  truths,  which 
cannot  be  superseded,  and  from  which  no  advance  can 
be  made.  They  are  the  limit  of  our  possibilities.  New 
facts  may  be  discovered  about  them  ;  there  may  be  new 
ways  of  stating  them,  new  illustrations  of  their  truth,  but 
there  can  be  no  advance  beyond  them.  They  mark  the 
farthest  boundaries  of  our  knowledge.  So  determinate 
and  fixed  is  this  belief  that  it  has  passed  into  a  maxim, 
that  "what  is  true  is  not  new,  and  what  is  new  is  not 
true." 

If  it  is  true  that  no  farther  advance  in  spiritual  knowl- 
edge is  possible,  it  is  well  to  know  it,  that  we  may  not 
waste  our  energies  in  struggling  again.it  the  inevitable, 
but  may  rest  and  try  to  content  ourselves  in  the  darkness 
and  uncertainty  of  our  present  attainments.  If  it  is  not 
true,  then  we  ought  to  know  it,  that,  without  fear  of 
danger  to  our  eternal  interests,  we  may  freely  and  fear- 
lessly examine  all  questions  relating  to  our  spiritual  na- 
ture, and  use  all  the  means  in  our  power  to  advance  into 
clearer  light  and  higher  attainments.  The  bare  possi- 
l)ility  that  we  can  gain  a  clearer  and  more  rational  light 
upon  all  the  great  questions  of  man's  spiritual  nature  and 
destiny  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  stimulate  us  to  the  dili- 
gent use  of  all  the  means  in  our  power  to  attain  so  im- 
portant a  result.  Let  us,  then,  examine  the  subject  in  the 
light  of  reason  and  revelation,  and  see  what  groiuid  we 
have  for  believing  that  we  can  continually  advance  in 
spiritual  knowledge,  into  clearer  light  and  more  certain 
attainments. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  present  attainments  in  spiritual 


PROGRESS  IiV  S  PI  RITUAL  KXOIVI.EDGE.  69 


knowledge  so  complete  and  satisfactory  as  to  lead  to 
the  conclusion  that  nothing  more  is  desirable.  On  the 
contrary,  the  present  state  of  religious  thought  proves 
directly  the  contrary.  There  has  never  been  a  time, 
since  the  truths  of  Christianity  were  first  revealed,  when 
there  was  so  much  difference  of  opinion  with  regard  to 
them,  and  so  little  heartiness  in  their  reception  as  stated 
in  the  dogmatic  forms  of  the  various  churches,  as  there 
is  now.  The  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity  as 
they  have  been  held,  which  hax  e  been  regarded  as  es- 
sential to  salvation,  are  not  taught  with  the  clearness 
and  distinctness  and  directness  in  any  of  the  churches 
that  they  were  formerly.  The  ministers  themselves  have 
not  the  undoubting  faith  in  them  which  the  ministers  of 
former  times  had.  The  intelligent  members  of  the  church 
do  not  believe  them  in  their  naked  and  unmodified  form 
as  they  were  once  believed.  The  doctrines  formerly 
accepted  are  not  now  held  with  that  unquestioning  belief 
which  a  good  Presbyterian  lady  once  told  me  she  had  in 
the  Bible.  "  If  the  Bible  had  said  that  Jonah  swallowed 
the  whale  instead  of  the  whale  swallowing  Jonah,"  she 
said,  "  I  would  believe  it." 

There  is  an  uncertainty,  a  diversity  of  opinion  upon 
what  have  been  regarded  as  the  fundamental  doctrines 
of  Christianity  which  is  increasing  rather  than  diminish- 
ing. The  Trinity,  the  Atonement,  the  Resurrection,  the 
nature  of  our  own  existence  after  Death,  the  Inspiration 
of  the  Bible, — questions  which  form  the  basis  of  all  re- 
ligious belief,  are  discussed  with  greater  zeal  than  they 
ever  were,  and  there  is  a  greater  variety  of  opinion  upon 
these  doctrines,  among  those  who  believe  in  them  in 


PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  k'XOWLEDGE. 


some  sense,  than  e\er  before.  The  opinions  range 
through  all  shades  from  a  merely  nominal  acceptance  of 
the  doctrines  to  that  belief  which  admits  of  no  doubt  be- 
cause it  admits  of  no  examination.  Is  it  rational  to  sup- 
pose that  this  confusion  of  tongues,  this  variety  of  opinion 
and  even  contradiction  of  belief,  this  uncertainty  and 
doubt  upon  questions  which  relate  to  man's  highest  in- 
terests, is  the  best  which  man  is  capable  of  attaining? 
Is  he  forbidden  to  advance  beyond  the  twilight  and  con- 
fusion of  mere  opinion  ?  It  seems  to  be  contrary  to  the 
nature  of  the  human  mind  and  the  purposes  of  the  Divine 
love  and  wisdom  that  it  should  be  so. 

But  if  any  one  is  disposed  to  deny  that  there  is  this 
diversity  of  opinion,  and  to  assert  that  the  fundamental 
doctrines  of  Christianity,  as  formally  held  by  Christians, 
are  generally  accepted  without  any  doubts  as  to  their 
truth,  it  still  holds  that  they  go  only  a  very  little  way  in 
sj^iritual  knowledge.  It  is  acknowledged  that  the  doc- 
trines themselves  are  not  and  cannot  be  understood. 
They  are  great  mysteries  which  the  human  mind,  in  this 
life,  cannot  fathom.  The  Trinity  is  a  mystery,  and  the 
more  it  is  discussed  and  explored  the  greater  the  confu- 
sion. The  Incarnation  of  God,  and  the  manner  in  which 
He  effected  human  redemption  by  assuming  a  human 
nature,  is  a  mystery  which,  it  is  generally  acknowledged, 
cannot  be  understood.  The  Resurrection  is  a  myster)- 
which  must  be  simply  accepted  as  a  fact,  but  which  can- 
not be  explained.  We  are  taught  that  we  are  to  live  for- 
ever, and  at  the  same  time  we  are  told  that  we  can  have 
no  certain  knowledge  of  the  modes  and  forms  and  nature 
of  the  life  after  death.    These  great  facts  are  affirmed  in 


PJtOGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE.  71 

the  most  positive  manner,  and  just  enough  is  taught 
about  them  to  awaken  interest  and  lead  to  their  examina- 
tion, and  then  we  are  told  that  they  cannot  be  under- 
stood ;  we  must  accept  them  by  an  act  of  faith.  Sup- 
pose the  doctrines  are  true,  how  little  they  have  done  for 
man  ! 

Now,  I  ask,  is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  Lord 
intended  this  to  be  the  extent  of  human  attainment  upon 
these  great  themes  which  relate  to  man's  highest  inter- 
ests? Does  it  accord  with  the  nature  of  the  human 
mind?  Is  it  consonant  with  His  oft-repeated  declaration 
in  His  Word  that  a  true  knowledge  of  God  is  of  vital 
importance  to  man,  that  to  know  Him  aright  is  life  ever- 
lasting ?  Does  it  seem  to  be  consistent  with  the  good- 
ness and  wisdom  of  God  that  He  should  tantalize  us  with 
expectations  which  He  forbids  us  to  realize,  and  give  us 
problems  impossible  of  solution,  which  rend  the  soul 
in  its  efforts  to  reach  the  unattainable  ?  What  else  does 
He  leave  in  such  a  fragmentary  and  unsatisfactory  condi- 
tion ?  It  is  like  bringing  the  tree  to  leaf  and  bud,  and 
arresting  its  progress  before  attaining  the  glory  of  blos- 
som and  the  blessing  of  fruit  ;  it  is  causing  hunger  and 
thirst  and  providing  no  means  to  satisfy  them  ;  it  is  giv- 
ing to  the  material  body  the  power  of  growing  into  the 
beauty  of  womanhood  and  the  strength  of  manhood  and 
withholding  the  means  of  growth,  leaving  it  in  helpless 
infancy,  cursed  by  eternal  feebleness  ;  it  is  endowing 
man  with  the  power  of  perceiving  a  few  rays  of  the  morn- 
ing twilight,  and  awakening  in  him  the  expectation  of 
the  coming  sun,  and  then  leaving  him  in  that  expectation 
while  its  coming  is  withheld.    It  is  contrary  to  every 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


principle  of  the  human  mind,  and  to  all  the  Divine 
methods  so  far  as  we  have  any  knowledge  of  them.  We 
conclude,  therefore,  that  the  Lord  never  intended  to  ar- 
rest man's  progress  in  the  knowledge  of  spiritual  truth, 
and  stay  his  footsteps  on  the  threshold  of  knowledge, 
while  the  whole  universe  of  truth  lies  waiting  to  be  ex- 
plored. 

But  we  are  not  left  to  conjecture  or  to  our  own  reason- 
ing upon  this  subject.  The  Lord  has  declared,  as  clearly 
as  human  language  can  express  a  truth,  that  it  is  the 
purpose  of  His  heart  to  communicate  His  love  and  wis- 
dom to  men.  He  desires  to  communicate  Himself  He 
gave  the  Word  for  this  purpose.  He  came  in  the  flesh 
to  be  a  light  to  the  world.  He  attributes  every  loss  and 
sorrow  to  ignorance  of  Him,  and  every  possible  attain- 
ment and  joy  to  a  true  knowledge  of  His  nature  and  re- 
lations to  men. 

The  words  of  our  text  are  an  explicit  declaration  of  the 
fact  that  progress  in  spiritual  knowledge  is  possible.  "  I 
have  yet  many  things  to  say  unto  you."  We  cannot 
suppose  that  these  words  applied  to  the  disciples  alone. 
They  must  be  of  universal  application.  They  are  as  true 
of  the  highest  angel  as  of  the  child  just  born.  The  Lord 
is  infinite,  man  is  finite.  The  Lord  has  a  perfect  knowl- 
edge of  all  causes  in  all  their  possible  forms  and  relations 
and  effects  to  eternity.  He  knows  the  influence  of  every 
affection,  thought,  and  act  upon  our  whole  future,  in  all 
its  combinations  and  its  relations  to  every  other  thought 
and  act  and  being.  He  sees  the  end  from  the  beginning 
of  every  particular  in  our  lives. 

How  little  the  wisest  men  know,  even  of  natural  forms 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOVVLEDCE. 


and  substances  !  Our  knowledge  is  limited  almost  en- 
tirely to  appearances  and  to  a  few  links  in  the  chain  of 
cause  and  effect.  We  know  that  when  light  flows  into 
the  eye  we  can  see,  but  we  do  not  know  how  such  a 
force,  flowing  into  such  a  form,  produces  such  an  effect. 
We  know  that  the  undulations  of  the  air  flowing  into  the 
ear  cause  hearing  ;  we  know  some  facts  about  the  rela- 
tion of  the  air  to  the  ear,  but  why  its  inflowing  should 
produce  the  effect  it  does  no  one  can  tell.  Great  prog- 
ress has  been  made  in  natural  science  during  the  last  cen- 
tury, but  the  relation  of  the  known  to  the  unknown  is  no 
greater  than  the  smallest  fraction  to  the  infinite.  Swe- 
denborg  says  that  the  wisest  angels  see  that  their  knowl- 
edge, compared  with  what  there  is  to  be  known,  is  so 
infinitesimal  that  they  simply  say  they  do  not  know  any- 
thing. Every  finite  intelligence,  however  great  its  ad- 
vancement in  knowledge, — and  in  the  coming  eternity 
that  knowledge  must  be  so  great  that  we  have  no  words 
to  express  it  or  power  to  conceive  of  it, — will  stand  upon 
the  shore,  while  the  ocean  of  truth  stretches  away  into 
the  infinite  distance  before  it.  The  time  can  never  come 
when  the  Lord  will  not  have  many  things  to  say  unto  us. 

This  idea,  at  the  first  view,  may  appear  to  be  discour- 
aging. Must  we  be  learners  forever?  Shall  we  never 
get  to  the  end  of  our  lessons  ?  What  is  the  use  of  learn- 
ing if  we  can  never  reach  the  goal  ?  We  know  it  to  be 
true  that  the  more  we  know  the  more  we  see  there  is  to 
be  known.  The  higher  we  rise,  the  wider  the  horizon. 
This  should  not  discourage  us,  because  the  acquisition 
of  knowledge  upon  every  subject  which  interests  us  is  a 
source  of  pleasure.    Knowledge  is  also  intellectual  and 

D  7 


PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


spiritual  power  and  wealth.  People  never  complain  be- 
cause they  have  more  chances  of  gaining  power  and 
riches.  Every  new  truth  enlarges  man's  means  and 
capacities  for  happiness.  Why,  then,  should  he  desire 
to  have  the  sources  of  truth,  and  his  ability  to  gain  it, 
exhausted  ?  The  fact  that  they  can  never  be  exhausted, 
that  the  Lord  will  always  have  many  things  to  say  to  us, 
is  the  hope  and  the  assurance  that  the  means  of  happi- 
ness will  never  fail. 

Limited  knowledge  does  not  necessarily  imply  false 
knowledge.  If  we  know  but  little,  that  little  may  be 
true  as  far  as  it  goes.  When  the  school-boy  has  only 
learned  that  two  and  two  make  four,  he  has  not  made 
much  progress  in  the  science  of  numbers,  but  he  has 
learned  something  which  he  will  never  need  to  unlearn. 
So  it  is  with  regard  to  every  subject  of  human  knowledge. 
When  we  have  learned  the  single  truth  that  God  is  one 
in  essence  and  person,  we  have  not  advanced  very  far  in 
a  knowledge  of  His  attributes,  but  we  have  learned  an 
absolute  truth  which  we  shall  never  find  occasion  to 
unlearn.  It  is  as  true  for  the  highest  angel  as  it  is  for 
the  little  child.  Every  new  fact  adds  new  clearness  and 
interest  to  those  we  have  already  learned.  For  this 
reason  our  interest  in  learning  and  our  happiness  in 
gaining  knowledge  will  continue  to  increase  forever. 

The  fact,  therefore,  that  the  Lord  has  many  things  to 
say  unto  us,  and  will  always  have  many  things  to  say 
unto  us,  holds  out  to  us  the  grandest  hopes  for  the 
future.  He  will  always  have  something  new  to  tell  us, 
and  there  will  always  be  the  zest  and  joy  of  learning 
from  Hini.     He  will  alw.'iys  have  many  things  to  teach 


PKOGNESS  /.V  SPIKITCAL   KXOIV/.EDCE.  75 

US  about  the  laws  of  our  own  nature,  aljout  our  relations 
to  others.  He  will  always  have  many  things  to  reveal  to 
us  concerning  His  own  love  and  wisdom,  and  His  infinite 
tenderness  and  care  for  us.  He  will  always  have  many 
things  to  reveal  to  us  concerning  the  excellence  and  beauty 
and  grandeur  of  the  world  around  us,  and  concerning 
His  infinite  wisdom  in  adapting  it  to  human  wants,  and  in 
making  it  a  means  of  support  and  culture  and  happiness. 
The  instructed  mind  sees  a  multitude  of  substances  and 
forces  and  beauties  in  the  material  world  which  no  one 
saw  a  century  ago  ;  and  when  we  pass  out  of  the  twilight 
of  this  dead,  material  world  into  the  brightness  and  the 
perfections  of  the  substantial,  living,  spiritual  world,  He 
will  show  us  innumerable  things  ineffably  more  beautiful 
and  nicely  adapted  to  all  our  wants,  ministering  to  a 
higher  culture  and  a  more  exquisite  happiness. 

The  reason  is  often  asked  why  the  Lord  does  not  speak 
to  us  more  plainly.  The  question  is  often  put  to  New- 
Churchmen,  why  the  Lord  did  not  make  known  the 
truths  of  the  New  Church  before,  if  they  are  so  great  an 
advance  upon  former  knowledge  upon  spiritual  subjects. 
Our  Lord  gives  the  answer  to  all  these  questions  in  the 
words,  "But  ye  cannot  bear  them  now."  The  Lord 
reveals  the  truth  to  us  as  fast  as  we  can  bear  it.  What 
He  can  tell  us  is  not  limited  by  His  knowledge  or  power  or 
willingness  to  communicate,  but  by  our  ability  to  receive. 

The  word  translated  "bear"  may  mean  to  under- 
stand. "  I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  unto  you,  but 
ye  cannot  understand  them  now."  We  have  conclusive 
evidence  in  the  Gospels  that  the  disciples  did  not  under- 
stand many  things  which  our  Lord  spake  to  them.  This 


76        FJWGRESS  LV  SPIRITL'AL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


is  true  of  all  disciples.  It  is  true  of  natural  and  of  spir- 
itual knowledge.  When  a  child  takes  its  first  lesson  in 
mathematics,  in  its  ignorance  and  innocence  it  might  say- 
to  the  teacher,  ' '  Tell  me  all  about  the  whole  science  of 
numbers."  The  teacher  could  only  reply,  "  I  cannot  do 
it. "  "  Why  can  you  not  do  it  ?"  "  Because  you  cannot 
bear  such  knowledge  now.  Mathematics  is  a  great  and 
complicated  science,  and  it  requires  much  study  and 
severe  discipline  of  the  mind  to  understand  it.  I  will 
tell  you  about  it  as  fast  as  you  can  bear  it. ' ' 

If  this  is  true  of  a  natural  science,  how  much  more  must 
it  be  true  in  relation  to  the  great  problems  of  man's 
spiritual  nature  and  destiny  !  They  lie  above  the  senses 
and  the  appearances  of  nature  ;  they  relate  to  interior 
and  hidden  things.  Man's  progress  in  the  knowledge 
of  the  outer  world  has  been  remarkably  slow,  though  its 
phenomena  have  been  continually  i)resent  to  the  senses, 
and  its  forces  have  been  continually  offering  themselves 
to  his  service,  to  fight  his  battles,  bear  his  burdens,  and 
do  his  work.  The  wind  and  the  rain,  the  sun  and  the 
earth,  were  constantly  whispering  their  secrets  in  his  ear, 
but  he  could  not  hear  their  voice.  How,  then,  could  w-e 
expect  that  man  could  understand  those  higher  truths 
which  relate  to  his  spiritual  wants  and  destiny?  If  it 
was  many  thousands  of  years  before  man  could  discover 
the  forces  in  steam,  the  existence  and  use  of  magnetism, 
and  the  nature  of  the  substances  which  contain  so  many 
elements  which  contribute  to  his  comfort  and  happiness, 
is  it  incredible  that  it  should  require  an  equal  number  of 
years  before  he  could  be  prepared  to  receive  interior 
spiritual  truth  ? 


PKOGA'ESS  LV  SP I  RITUAL  k'XOWLEDGE. 


77 


But  the  words  "  ye  cannot  bear  them  now"  mean  more 
than  inabihty  to  understand  :  they  mean  indifference  and 
hostility  to  spiritual  truth.  There  is  an  inherent  repug- 
nance in  the  natural  mind  to  spiritual  truth.  It  is  more 
than  ignorance,  or  incapacity,  or  indifference  :  it  is  hos- 
tility ;  it  is  opposition  of  nature.  It  is  like  the  repug- 
nance which  we  find  in  the  material  body  to  certain  sub- 
stances. We  use  this  very  term  concerning  them.  We 
say  we  cannot  bear  the  smell  or  taste  or  sight  of  them. 
The  natural  degree  of  the  mind  has  fallen.  All  its 
tastes  have  become  perverted.  It  looks  downward  and 
outward  to  material  things.  It  does  not  act  in  harmony 
with  the  spiritual  mind.  It  does  not  like  to  hear  any- 
thing about  a  spiritual  world.  It  cannot  conceive  of  a 
distinctly  spiritual  existence.  Something  akin  to  nausea 
is  excited  by  hearing  about  the  spiritual  sense  of  the 
Word. 

When  our  Lord  said  to  His  disciples  that  He  had 
many  things  to  say  unto  them,  He  evidently  did  not 
mean  that  he  had  many  more  natural  facts  to  teach  them 
about  Himself  or  His  mission  in  this  world,  because  He 
never  did  speak  much  more  to  them  about  these  things. 
His  meaning  was  more  plain  as  He  went  on  to  say, 
"But  when  he,  the  Spirit  of  truth,  is  come,  he  will 
guide  you  into  all  truth.  .  .  .  He  shall  receive  of  mine 
and  shall  show  it  unto  you."  He  shall  show  you  the 
spiritual  meaning  of  the  words  which  ha\'e  been  spoken 
unto  you,  for  they  are  spirit  and  life.  They  could  not 
bear  their  spiritual  import  then. 

Many  Christian  people  are  in  the  same  state  now. 
They  can  talk  about  religion  ;  they  can  pray  with  fervor 

7* 


78        r/x  OGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDCE. 


and  sing  with  delight.  But  they  cannot  bear  to  think 
that  the  Bible  has  a  spiritual  meaning.  The  idea  that 
the  spiritual  world  is  a  substantial  and  really-existing 
world  ;  that  man  himself,  as  to  his  spirit,  is  in  the  human 
form  and  fully  organized  as  a  man  seems  absurd  to  them. 
The  idea  that  the  old,  familiar  Bible  is  luminous  with 
infinite  truth,  and  that  they  have  drawn  their  doctrines 
and  formed  their  opinions  from  the  appearances  of  truth 
in  the  letter  ;  that  their  minds  are  veiled  and  over- 
shadowed with  the  clouds  of  the  letter,  while  the  un- 
veiled and  glorious  sun  shines  in  clear  radiance  about 
them,  they  cannot  bear.  But  when  the  spiritual  truth, 
not  the  letter  of  it,  but  the  Spirit  of  truth,  comes, — and 
He  will  come  when  men  will  open  their  minds  to  receive 
Him, — He  will  show  them  many  things  which  they  never 
dreamed  of  before.  He  will  show  them  things  to  come. 
These  things  are  not  natural  events  that  will  occur  in  the 
church  in  after-times,  as  most  commentators  have  sup- 
posed, but  spiritual  things.  A  new  and  more  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  Lord, — "He  shall  receive  of  mine, 
and  show  it  unto  you  ;"  a  more  accurate  and  a  larger 
knowledge  of  our  own  nature  and  destiny.  He  will 
show  you  things  to  come  in  the  spiritual  world.  He  will 
reveal  to  you  the  laws  of  the  spiritual  uni\  erse,  and  show 
you  how  surpassingly  beautiful  and  glorious  it  is.  He 
will  make  real  to  you  your  eternal  home,  and  lead  you 
into  it. 

When  the  Spirit  of  truth  begins  to  shine  in  our  under- 
standings, a  new  and  glorious  day  is  dawning  upon  us  ; 
a  sun  is  rising  which  will  never  set.  As  the  mind  opens 
to  the  reception  of  this  light,  it  enlarges,  and  can  receive 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE.  79 


more  of  the  many  things  which  the  Lord  has  to  say  to 
us.  It  also  improves  in  strength  and  quality.  It  can 
receive  higher  truths,  clearer  light  ;  it  has  a  more  com- 
prehensive and  delicate  capacity  for  reception  ;  it  can 
receive  larger  and  richer  and  more  -exquisite  joys.  It 
will  continue  to  advance  towards  the  Lord  with  con- 
stantly accelerating  velocity  ;  its  power  of  reception  from 
the  Lord  will  continue  to  increase,  and  yet  the  Lord  will 
always  have  many  things  to  say  that  are  more  glorious 
and  that  will  fill  the  soul  with  a  constantly  deeper  and 
more  exquisite  joy.  May  we  be  among  the  number  of 
those  who  have  clear  eyes  and  listening  ears  and  open 
hearts  to  receive  the  many  things  which  the  Lord  has  to 
say  to  us,  and  which  His  Spirit  of  truth  is  ever  ready  to 
show  unto  us. 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH 
A  SPIRITUAL  SCIENCE. 


''Behold,  I  make  all  things  neiu." — Revelation  xxi.  5. 
II  7  E  live  in  a  miraculous  aee.    Our  lot  has  been  cast 


in  the  midst  of  those  tremendous  changes  in  man's 
spiritual  condition  which  could  be  fitly  typified  only  by 
the  most  stupendous  convulsions  in  the  material  world, 
— by  the  darkening  of  the  sun  in  the  heavens,  the  falling 
of  the  stars  from  their  places  ;  by  conflagrations  and 
cosmic  storms  ;  and  by  the  creation  of  new  heavens  and 
a  new  earth. 

It  is  our  happiness  as  New-Churchmen  to  know  the 
meaning  of  these  prophetic  symbols,  and.  secure  from 
harm  from  these  convulsions,  and  unterrified  by  the 
noise  and  wild  fury  of  old  systems  falling  to  ruin,  and  the 
collision  of  chaotic  forms  of  belief  to  stand  upon  the 
new  earth  rising  fresh  and  fair  from  the  ruins  of  the  old, 
and  to  see  the  new  heavens,  clear  and  serene,  overarch- 
ing human  life, — heavens  whose  moon  is  brighter  than 
the  sun  of  the  former  age,  and  whose  sun  shines  with 
seven-fold  splendor. 

I  ask  your  attention  to  one  of  the  distinct  and  peculiar 
characteristics  of  this  age,  one  which  clearly  entitles  it  to 
the  claim  of  being  the  fulfilment  of  the  Divine  promise, 
"Behold,  I  make  all  things  new;"  which  will  make  it 


So 


DOCTRINES  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH  A  SCIENCE.  8i 


enduring  as  the  power  of  the  Lord  to  create  human  souls, 
will  give  it  the  excellence  of  heavenly  graces,  the  beauty  of 
heavenly  forms,  the  power  and  glory  of  Divine  truth,  and 
imbue  it  with  the  blessedness  of  heavenly  peace  ;  which 
will  make  it  the  Lord's  kingdom  on  earth.  I  say,  "  will 
make  it,"  for  this  new  day  of  the  Lord,  even  to  the  most 
advanced  minds,  is  yet  only  in  the  gray  of  the  morning. 
Its  full-orbed  sun  is  yet  below  the  horizon,  and  the  mass 
of  the  people  are  still  asleep  in  the  shadow  of  the  valley. 
Some  of  them  are  indeed  stirred  by  a  new  breath  of 
power,  but  "whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth" 
they  cannot  tell.  It  is  the  unconscious  influence  of  the 
Divine  force  which  precedes  the  light,  which  opens  the 
eyes  and  prepares  them  for  its  reception.  But  enough 
of  the  light  has  been  seen  by  some  minds,  watching  for 
the  morning,  to  reveal  its  true  nature  and  to  give  un- 
doubted assurance  that  it  is  not  the  twilight  of  an  age 
passing  away,  but  the  morning  of  a  spiritual  age  which 
is  new  in  spirit,  new  in  form,  new  in  power,  and  will  be 
new  in  life.  The  characteristic  of  the  new  age  to  which 
I  invite  your  attention  is  one  peculiar  to  its  genius,  which 
gives  it  a  surpassing  excellence.  I  propose  to  speak  of 
the  truths  of  the  New  Church  as  a  spiritual  science. 

By  science  I  mean  the  laws  of  the  Divine  order  as  they 
exist  in  the  creation,  the  methods  of  the  Divine  wisdom 
in  effecting  the  purposes  of  the  Divine  love  in  their  con- 
nections and  relations.  The  Lord's  methods  of  working 
in  nature  constitute  natural  science.  When  we  discover 
those  methods  and  the  relation  of  one  substance  and  of 
one  form  to  another,  and  of  causes  to  their  effects,  that 
knowledge  constitutes  science.  Science  treats  of  sub- 
/ 


82       PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


Stances  and  forces  and  fonns  in  their  connections  and 
relations,  and  reveals  the  laws  and  methods  by  which 
many  things  make  one.  Science  is  spiritual  when  it 
relates  to  spiritual  subjects.  The  same  conditions  are 
essential  to  a  spiritual  as  to  a  natural  science.  Let  us 
consider  what  those  conditions  are. 

First,  science  must  be  based  upon  facts.  It  is  as  impos- 
sible to  construct  a  science  without  facts  as  it  is  to  build 
a  stone  wall  without  stones.  Science  cannot  be  con- 
structed with  fancies,  or  opinions,  or  of  facts  even  as  they 
appear  to  the  senses.  Nor  can  it  be  formed  by  a  mere 
accumulation  of  facts.  Science  is  formed  by  insight  into 
the  intrinsic  forms  and  qualities  of  isolated  facts,  by  which 
their  relations  to  other  facts  are  seen,  and  the  higher  laws 
and  qualities  common  to  all  the  particular  facts  are  dis- 
covered. It  is  now  known  that  all  the  kingdoms  of 
nature,  and  all  the  individuals  in  each  kingdom,  are 
bound  together,  penetrated,  and  moved  by  substances 
and  forces  of  a  finer  and  more  subtile  nature  than  the 
coarse  concrete  forms  which  clothe  and  hide  them.  The 
knowledge  of  these  forces  and  the  laws  according  to 
which  they  act  upon  every  particular  object,  and  of  how 
the  stone  and  plant  and  animal  welcome  and  treat,  re- 
ceive or  reject,  use  or  reflect  these,  to  them,  heavenly 
visitors,  is  the  science  of  nature. 

Spiritual  science  requires  spiritual  facts.  These  are 
given  us  in  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church.  Sweden- 
borg's  introduction  into  the  spiritual  world,  and  his  state- 
ment, from  living  experience,  of  what  is  done  there  by 
the  Lord  and  angels  and  spirits,  was  just  as  necessary  to 
a  spiritual  science  as  a  man's  introduction  into  this  world 


DOCTRINES  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH  A  SCIENCE.  83 


and  the  ability  to  see  and  hear  what  the  Lord  is  doing 
here,  and  what  men  are  doing,  and  how  they  are  doing 
it,  is  an  essential  condition  of  any  natural  science.  The 
claim  of  Swedenborg  to  have  done  this,  a  claim  to  which 
men  take  strong  exceptions,  is  absolutely  essential  to  the 
work  he  performed.  His  doctrines  of  man's  nature  and 
relations  are  not  based  upon  fancies  or  opinions,  but  upon 
facts,  upon  what  takes  place  in  the  spirit.  He  has  also 
rendered  to  men  this  further  service  and  given  this  larger 
evidence  of  the  truth  of  his  claims  ;  he  has  shown  us  how 
to  descend  from  the  palaces  of  spiritual  truth  into  the 
paradise  of  nature,  and  to  find  the  higher  laws  of  the 
spirit  ruling  in  corresponding  forms  and  working  by 
similar  methods  in  animal,  plant,  and  mineral. 

One  of  the  causes  which  has  made  the  endless  discus- 
sion of  religious  questions  so  fruitless  in  results  is  the 
want  of  any  fixed  and  clearly-defined  subject  of  spiritual 
knowledge.  The  New  Church  stands  on  the  solid  basis 
of  spiritual  substance.  It  deals  with  realities.  The 
spiritual  world  is  the  real  world,  the  spirit  is  the  real 
man  ;  its  laws  of  culture  and  development  are  as  definite 
and  immutable  as  the  laws  of  nature  ;  they  are  also  ascer- 
tainable and  capable  of  precise  application.  We  have 
the  same  basis  for  progress  in  spiritual  knowledge  and 
life  that  we  have  for  progress  in  natural  knowledge  and 
life  in  this  world.  The  spiritual  body  is  presented  to  us 
for  examination,  as  real  and  substantial  as  the  material 
body  which  is  presented  to  the  physiologist  for  his  study. 
We  are  introduced  into  a  distinct  and  substantial  world, 
and  we  are  furnished  with  true  principles  for  our  guidance. 
So  far  as  regards  a  substantial  basis,  therefore,  we  are  as 


84       PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


thoroughly  equipped  for  progress  in  spiritual  knowledge 
for  the  attainment  of  some  distinct  and  desirable  end  as 
the  men  of  science  are  for  knowledge  of  physical  laws 
and  their  use  in  our  natural  progress. 

There  is  also  no  dearth  of  material  for  endless  advance 
in  spiritual  knowledge.  The  science  of  correspondences, 
which  reveals  the  definite  relation  between  natural  effects 
and  spiritual  causes,  opens  in  nature,  and  especially  in 
the  natural  symbols  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  e.xhaustless 
depths  of  spiritual  knowledge.  Every  natural  object  and 
act  mentioned  in  the  Scriptures  is  the  outward  form  and 
expression  of  a  spiritual  fact  or  a  series  of  facts,  one  lying 
within  the  other,  and  all  so  connected  and  related  that 
they  reveal  the  means  and  the  order  of  man's  spiritual 
creation  and  of  his  relations  to  the  Source  of  life.  We 
shall  never  want  for  facts,  therefore.  Science  will  sooner 
exhaust  nature  than  any  finite  mjnd  can  exhaust  the 
forms  of  spiritual  trutli  contained  in  the  Sacred  Scrip- 
tures. 

The  doctrines  of  the  new  age  possess  also  in  an  eminent 
degree  the  second  essential  of  a  true  science  ;  they  are 
organized  truth.  They  are  not  assertions  made  u])on 
personal  authority  ;  they  are  not  detached  and  unrelated 
truths  ;  much  less  are  they  conflicting  statements  which 
destroy  one  another.  They  bear  the  same  relation  to 
spiritual  facts  that  a  house  does  to  the  materials  of  which 
it  is  constructed,  or  that  the  wonderful  structure  of  the 
body  bears  to  the  food  which  nourishes  it.  They  are  a 
symmetrical  whole,  composed  of  intimately  related  parts, 
a  house  fitted  to  be  the  home  of  heavenly  afi'ections  and 
the  'ndwcUing  life  of  the  Lord. 


DOCTRINES  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH  A  SCIENCE.  85 


Science  teaches  us  how  to  use  facts.  Rational  knowl- 
edge shows  the  ratio  or  relation  of  one  thing  or  of  one 
being  to  another,  by  which  the  unity  of  life  is  discovered. 
The  plan  and  form  and  function  of  the  various  mental 
faculties  are  show-n  by  true  spiritual  science.  In  this  re- 
spect we  are  better  equipped  for  spiritual  progress  than 
the  scientific  man  is  for  natural  progress.  Here  we  find 
again  the  inestimable  service  which  Swedenborg  has  ren- 
dered us.  He  has  given  us  the  laws  of  spiritual  life  as 
they  are  derived  from  the  Lord  and  exist  in  man.  We 
have  only  to  learn  them  and  to  examine  spiritual  facts  in 
their  light  to  see  their  true  nature  and  relations.  We 
can  verify  the  general  law  by  particular  facts.  The  prin- 
ciple is  seen  at  first  in  outline  more  or  less  distinctly  ; 
but  every  new  particular  fills  up  the  outline,  brings  new 
light  to  it,  and  is  a  new  witness  to  its  truth.  Having 
rational  knowledge  we  know  how  to  dispose  of  the  facts 
as  we  learn  them.  We  see  their  relations  to  other  facts 
and  to  the  central  principle  which  underlies  the  whole. 
They  fall  into  their  places  and  tend  to  unity.  Beneath 
the  illusion  of  appearances  we  see  order,  harmony,  and 
the  most  powerful  forces  working  according  to  immu- 
table law  for  human  good. 

This  is  a  new  and  distinct  step,  and  gives  man  the  same 
help  in  spiritual  progress  that  a  rational  knowledge  of  the 
substances  and  forces  of  nature  has  given  him  in  natural 
progress.  It  forms  a  basis  on  which  he  can  stand.  It 
gives  him  power  to  wield  his  materials,  to  build  up  his 
life,  and  to  come  into  orderly  and  helpful  relations  to 
others.  His  knowledge  changes  from  a  thicket,  in  which 
he  gets  entangled  by  a  multiplicity  of  apparently  unrelated 

8 


86       PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


and  incongruous  forms,  to  a  garden  widi  sure  paths  which 
lead  from  blossom  to  fruit,  from  labor  to  attainment.  He 
comes  out  of  confusion  and  chaos  into  harmonious  and 
established  order. 

The  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  are  a  statement  of 
the  laws  of  man's  regeneration,  spiritual  culture,  and 
growth  in  heavenly  life,  and  of  his  relations  to  the 
Lord,  to  angels,  spirits,  and  men  ;  to  the  spiritual  world 
on  one  side  of  his  nature,  and  to  the  material  world  on 
the  other.  They  possess  all  the  qualities  of  a  true  science 
of  the  spirit  ;  they  will  meet  every  requirement  for  the 
most  varied  and  fullest  development  of  our  spiritual  facul- 
ties and  the  attainment  of  every  natural,  spiritual,  and 
heavenly  good  which  man  can  conceive  and  the  Lord  can 
give. 

Science  not  only  introduces  us  into  a  world  of  new 
truths,  gives  us  clearer  light,  enlarges  the  horizon  of 
thought,  and  reveals  to  us  the  beauty  and  harmony  of  the 
Divine  order,  but  it  teaches  us  how  to  employ  the  sub- 
stances and  forces  we  have  discovered  for  our  own  use. 
We  are  all  familiar  with  the  achievements  of  natural 
science  in  this  respect.  It  has  discovered  and  brought 
into  common  use  tireless  forces  of  exhaustless  power 
which  bear  our  burdens,  run  upon  our  errands,  do  our 
work,  and  minister  to  our  comfort  in  manifold  ways. 
Science  has  not  only  revealed  them,  but  it  has  taught  us 
how  to  use  them.  It  has  harnessed  them  to  our  service  ; 
it  has  put  the  reins  into  our  hands  by  which  we  can  con- 
trol and  guide  them.  Spiritual  science  will  render  the 
same  service  to  us  on  the  spiritual  plane  of  life.  It  not 
only  introduces  us  into  a  new  world  of  sjMritual  truth, 


DOCTRINES  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH  A  SCIENCE.  87 


illuminates  the  understanding  with  its  light,  and  charms 
the  soul  with  its  beauty  ;  it  not  only  places  us  in  the 
midst  of  the  Divine  harmonies  and  unveils  the  forms  of 
spiritual  substances  and  forces  as  much  superior  to  natural 
forces  in  power  and  capacity  for  human  good  as  the  soul 
is  more  excellent  than  the  body,  but  it  teaches  us  how  to 
use  them  to  overcome  our  spiritual  enemies,  to  remove 
the  obstacles  to  our  progress,  and  to  help  us  in  the  de- 
velopment of  our  noblest  faculties  and  the  attainment  of 
our  highest  good. 

There  is  conclusive  evidence  that  men,  urged  by  their 
needs  and  stimulated  by  their  hopes,  are  demanding  a 
knowledge  of  spiritual  truth  which  is  based  on  facts, 
which  is  logically  consistent,  and  leads  to  practical  results. 
Wearied  with  fruitless  labor,  distracted  with  doubts,  tor- 
mented by  conflicting  passions,  despairing  of  help  from 
the  past,  hungry  for  meat  that  will  feed  their  famished 
souls,  and  with  aspirations  for  a  higher  life  than  they  have 
found  the  method  and  means  of  obtaining,  they  are  wait- 
ing in  despair  or  turning  with  hope  to  a  new  day.  They 
find  that  all  things  in  the  material  world  are  related  and 
indissolubly  bound  together;  that  unconnected  existence, 
even  for  the  stone,  is  impossible.  They  see  method, 
order,  subordination  existing  in  all  things  great  and  small, 
and  immutable  law  governing  all  the  Lord's  operations  in 
nature,  and  they  logically  conclude  that  the  same  prin- 
ciples and  methods  rule  in  the  realm  of  spirit.  They  see 
that  the  Lord  does  not  work  at  random  in  the  creation 
and  development  of  the  plant  and  the  material  body,  and 
they  pertinently  ask  why  He  should  do  it  in  the  formation 
of  the  spirit.    All  the  tendencies  of  the  age,  all  its  move- 


88       PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


merits,  its  hopes,  and  even  its  doubt  and  denial  and 
despair,  and  all  those  subtile  and  delicate  but  powerful 
currents  which  sway  the  feelings  before  they  awaken 
thought,  which  kindle  hope  and  turn  the  face  in  the 
direction  of  the  new  light,  point  with  unerring  finger  to 
a  scientific  and  rational  knowledge  of  spiritual  truth  ; 
they  prophesy  the  existence  of  an  order,  method,  and 
law  of  the  spirit,  of  the  same  nature  as  those  which  exist 
in  the  material  universe.  The  claim  that  a  spiritual 
science  is  possible  does  not  come  from  a  few  minds  alone 
disaffected  with  the  confusion  and  comparatively  fruitless 
religious  doctrines  of  the  past  ;  it  comes  from  every  form 
and  movement  in  nature  ;  the  stone  embodies  it,  the 
grass  and  the  vine  and  every  tree  of  the  forest  speak  of 
it,  the  instinct  of  the  animal  proclaims  it.  Every  prin- 
ciple in  man's  nature  declares  the  possibility  of  a  spiritual 
science,  because  it  is  itself  the  embodiment  of  it.  But 
especially  the  rational  faculties  of  the  mind  demand 
rational  knowledge  as  the  eye  demands  light,  the  fin 
water,  the  wing  air,  and  the  body  food  ;  and  whatever 
the  Lord  has  given  man  the  power  to  want,  He  has  pro- 
vided the  means  to  supply.  The  existence  of  a  Divine 
order  in  spiritual  growth  and  attainment  is  certain,  and 
the  ability  of  man  to  receive  and  understand  the  knowl- 
edge of  it  and  come  into  the  life  and  joy  of  it  is  as  sure 
as  that  plants  will  blossom  and  bear  fruit,  and  that  seed- 
time and  harvest  will  continue. 

Let  us  then  notice  some  of  the  effects  which  a  rational 
knowledge  of  s])iritual  truth  and  a  life  conformable  to  that 
knowledge  must  legitimately  and  certainly  produce.  For- 
tunately we  are  not  left  to  conjecture  concerning  these 


DOCTRINES  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH  A  SCIENCE.  89 

results.  We  have  a  complete  demonstration  of  the  power 
of  rational  knowledge  in  the  miracles  which  science  has 
wrought  on  the  natural  plane  of  life.  If  a  true  knowledge 
of  the  forms,  forces,  and  qualities  of  nature  can  change 
the  face  of  the  world,  modify  all  human  conditions,  and 
bring  into  the  service  of  man  a  multitude  of  powerful, 
tireless  forces  to  bear  his  burdens,  run  upon  his  errands, 
and  in  manifold  ways  minister  to  his  wants,  what  limits 
can  we  assign  to  the  power  of  a  rational  knowledge  of 
spiritual  substances  and  the  laws  of  their  activities  and 
relations?  The  results  of  such  knowledge  must  be  as 
much  greater  and  more  beneficent  in  the  spiritual  realm 
of  life  as  the  knowledge  itself  is  higher  in  degree  and 
more  excellent  in  its  forms.  It  is  not  possible  to  over- 
estimate its  beneficent  effects,  for  it  is  a  knowledge  of 
causes,  of  vital  forces  ;  it  deals  with  the  sources  of  power  ; 
it  is  the  true  knowledge  of  God  and  of  man  and  of  their 
relations  to  each  other. 

The  effects  of  a  rational  knowledge  of  spiritual  truth 
will  be  both  negative  and  positive.  The  truth  not  only 
gives  man  power  and  light,  but  it  frees  him  from  many 
obstacles  to  his  progress.    The  truth  makes  him  free. 

It  frees  him  from  groundless  fears.  When  we  do  not 
know  the  way  we  fear  that  every  step  may  lead  to  danger. 
It  is  natural  for  us  to  fill  the  unknown  with  terrors.  Be- 
fore the  light  of  science  had  dawned  upon  the  earth,  any 
deviation  from  the  accustomed  order  of  nature,  as  an 
eclipse  of  the  sun  or  moon,  filled  the  minds  of  men  with 
superstitious  fears.  They  trembled  at  the  dire  calamities 
which  they  supposed  such  phenomena  to  forebode.  The 
same  occurrence  now  gives  pleasure  to  millions,  and  is 

8* 


PROGRESS  AV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


the  means  of  much  useful  knowledge.  In  spiritual  life 
men  are  tormented  and  held  in  cruel  bondage  by  ground- 
less fears.  There  is  the  fear  of  coming  evils  which  never 
come  and  have  no  existence  ;  the  fear  that  the  Lord  is 
our  enemy  when  He  is  our  infinite  and  unchangeable 
Friend  ;  the  fear  of  death  as  the  most  terrible  calamity, 
when  it  is  an  orderly  step  in  life ;  and  a  multitude  of  other 
fears,  wholly  groundless,  which  destroy  man's  peace  and 
paralyze  his  power.  A  knowledge  of  spiritual  truth  will 
disperse  the  darkness  of  ignorance  in  which  these  spiritual 
fears  are  bred,  chase  them  away  as  the  coming  sun  dispels 
the  night  and  all  its  hideous  forms. 

Again,  genuine  spiritual  knowledge  will  free  the  mind 
from  doubt.  Man's  progress  in  spiritual  life  is  constantly 
retarded  by  doubts.  He  goes  to  and  fro  instead  of  mov- 
ing on  to  new  attainments  ;  he  stands  still  instead  of 
advancing  ;  he  rejects  the  truth  when  offered  to  him  ;  his 
steps  are  halting,  his  courage  weak  ;  he  hesitates  and 
lingers  and  is  distracted  by  conflicting  influences,  misses 
the  chances  of  life,  and  fails  of  any  great  attainment  in 
spiritual  development,  because  he  is  not  sure  of  the  path 
which  leads  to  it.  The  misgivings,  the  fears  and  tor- 
ments which  the  noblest  minds  have  suffered  from  this 
cause  are  one  of  the  most  mournful  phases  in  the  sad  his- 
tory of  humanity.  Men  do  not  doubt  about  what  they 
know  ;  it  is  when  they  do  not  know,  or  when  they  see  in 
the  twilight  only  the  flitting  forms  of  appearances  that 
they  doubt.  Genuine  knowledge  carries  the  conviction 
of  certainty  with  it.  This  is  the  effect  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  New  Church  upon  those  who  know  them.  This 
benign  power  will  increase  until  all  doubts  are  dispelled, 


DOCTRliXES  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH  A  SCIENCE.  91 


and  man  will  walk  in  the  freedom  and  joy  of  the  new 
light,  with  firm  and  sure  steps,  in  a  straight  path  to  the 
attainment  of  the  highest  ends. 

A  result  of  rational  knowledge  is  constant  increase  of 
light.  Every  new  truth  verifies  the  principle  to  which  it 
relates.  Every  new  truth  is  a  new  star  in  the  firmament 
of  the  mind.  All  progress  in  knowledge,  natural  as  well 
as  spiritual,  is  from  evening  to  morning,  and  from  morn- 
ing to  bright  day.  Many  have  accepted  the  doctrines  of 
the  New  Church,  at  first  with  a  hope  tremulous  with  fear 
that  they  might  come  to  a  point  where  they  would  find 
their  way  obstructed  with  insoluble  problems  and  dark- 
ness again  gathering  over  them.  But  it  has  been  their 
blessed  experience  to  find  the  way  becoming  clearer  ; 
difficulties  vanish,  problems  Vvhich  were  supposed  to  be 
beyond  human  skill  to  solve  yield  readily  to  the  new 
power,  paths  open  into  broad  spaces  which  seemed  closed 
to  human  approach,  mysteries  are  understood,  and  light 
increases  at  every  step.  When  we  come  into  the  harmo- 
nies of  the  Divine  order  we  begin  to  see  truth  in  the  light 
of  truth.  Genuine  truth  is  its  own  witness  ;  it  shines  with 
its  own  light,  it  reveals  its  own  nature,  and  it  fills  the 
mind  with  light.  This  is  the  history  of  science,  and  it 
accords  with  the  experience  of  every  man  and  woman 
who  has  come  into  the  light  of  the  new  age. 

This  gradual  and  constant  increase  of  light  also  pro- 
duces a  conviction,  which  finally  amounts  to  a  certainty, 
that  we  are  on  the  right  road  to  the  attainment  of  the 
end  we  are  seeking.  When  we  discover  new  truths  in 
harmony  with  those  already  known,  we  get  new  and 
stronger  confirmations  of  what  we  have  already  learned  ; 


PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


we  are  attracted  by  the  new  beauty,  we  are  stimulated 
to  new  activity,  we  are  always  attaining ;  new  gates  open 
into  broader  fields  of  truth,  and  the  certainty  of  convic- 
tion that  we  are  on  the  right  path  which  leads  to  the  ever- 
receding  goal  of  perfection  fills  the  mind  with  a  sweet  and 
profound  peace.  We  are  coming  into  the  order  of  the 
Divine  wisdom  ;  we  see  the  way  to  make  ourselves  a  part 
of  the  Divine  harmony. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  in  the  history  of  humanity  that 
men  have  regarded  those  who  were  the  most  friendly  to 
them  as  their  direst  enemies,  and  those  steps  in  life  which 
have  been  provided  by  infinite  love  and  wisdom  for  their 
highest  good  as  the  most  terrible  calamities.  They  have 
fled  from  their  friends,  they  have  been  blind  to  the  richest 
treasures  of  truth  which  lay  before  them,  they  have  been 
tormented  with  groundless  fears,  have  wandered  in  dark- 
ness when  the  light  was  shining  all  around  them,  and 
have  been  crushed  with  self-imposed  burdens  when  al- 
mighty power  was  offered  to  lift  them  from  their  shoulders. 
The  rational  knowledge  of  the  new  age  clears  away  all 
these  shadows,  dispels  the  appearances  which  have  sur- 
rounded human  life  with  illusions,  and  places  man  in  the 
midst  of  forces  of  omnipotent  power  friendly  to  every 
human  interest,  and  teaches  him  how  to  use  them  for  the 
development  of  the  highest  plane  of  his  being.  It  gives 
him  definite,  practical  knowledge.  It  reveals  to  him  the 
true  ends  of  life,  puts  the  means  of  attaining  them  into 
his  hand,  and  shows  him  how  to  use  them.  It  must, 
therefore,  render  him  the  same  service  as  a  spiritual  being, 
as  a  citizen  of  a  spiritual  world  in  which  he  is  to  find  his 
home  and  to  dwell  forever,  that  a  knowledge  of  the  finer 


DOCTRINES  OF  77IE  NEW  CHURCH  A  SCIENCE.  93 

substances  and  forces  of  nature  has  rendered  him  as  a 
material  being  and  son  of  earth  and  time.  It  must  change 
the  whole  aspect  of  human  Hfe  ;  it  must  give  an  immense 
impulse  to  progress  in  spiritual  knowledge  ;  it  must  give 
fulness,  clearness,  directness,  and  precision  to  every  effort 
for  spiritual  culture  ;  it  must  bring  man  into  such  relations 
to  the  Lord  that  he  will  know  what  to  do  and  how  to  do 
it  to  come  into  orderly  relations  with  Him,  and  to  open 
every  faculty  of  the  soul  to  Divine  influence,  to  be  with 
the  Lord  where  He  is,  and  thus  to  dwell  in  the  centres 
of  life  and  move  in  the  peaceful  currents  of  the  Divine 
order  to  the  attainment  of  new  joys  and  the  rest  of  an 
ever-deepening  peace.    It  must  make  all  things  new. 

We  stand  in  the  morning  of  this  new  day  ;  its  privi- 
leges and  its  responsibilities  rest  upon  us.  No  men  ever 
had  greater  interests  committed  to  them  ;  no  men  ever 
possessed  larger  means  and  grander  opportunities  for 
their  own  spiritual  attainment  and  to  make  themselves  a 
blessing  to  humanity.  Much  has  been  given  to  us  ;  much 
will  be  required  of  us.  Let  us  be  faithful  to  our  trusts  ; 
let  us  counsel  wisely  and  labor  diligently  to  make  known 
to  men  those  spiritual  and  Divine  truths  in  which  the 
Lord  is  making  His  second  coming  to  men,  and  by  which 
He  will  subdue  all  things  unto  Himself. 


GOD  AND  MAN. 


"  So  God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God 
created  he  him." — Genesis  i.  27. 

'X'HERE  are  two  vital  questions  which  He  at  the  founda- 


*  tion  of  every  religion  and  give  quality  to  it.  These 
questions  are,  first,  Who  is  God,  and  how  shall  we 
think  of  Him  ?  Second,  What  is  man,  and  how  are  God 
and  man  related  to  each  other  ?  Neither  of  these  ques- 
tions can  be  understood  without  some  knowledge  of  the 
other.  They  are  reciprocally  and  intimately  related.  It 
is  impossible  to  gain  a  true  idea  of  God  without  some 
true  knowledge  of  man,  and  it  is  impossible  to  gain  an 
adequate  conception  of  man's  nature  without  some  cor- 
rect knowledge  of  God.  Man  was  created  in  the  image 
of  God.  We  rhust,  therefore,  look  to  man  to  get  our  first 
hints  of  the  form  and  nature  of  God.  I  propose  to  state, 
as  far  as  I  can  in  limited  space,  what  the  New  Church 
teaches  upon  this  subject. 

The  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  are  Unitarian  in  the 
assertion  that  there  is  one  and  only  one  Supreme  Being. 
They  are  Trinitarian  in  teaching  the  Divinity  of  Jesus 
Christ.  They  difier  essentially  from  both  in  showing  that 
the  whole  Trinity  is  embodied  in  the  one  person  of  our 
Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  these  three 
essentials  of  His  nature  constitute  His  Divine  personality. 
This  is  in  accordance  with  all  that  He  says  about  Himself 
in  the  whole  of  Scripture  when  rightly  understood.  The 


94 


GOD  AND  MAN. 


95 


apostle  declares  it  in  the  plainest  manner  when  he  says, 
"  In  him,"  that  is  in  Jesus  Christ,  "  dwelleth  all  the  ful- 
ness of  the  Godhead  bodily. ' '  The  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
affirms  it  when  He  says,  "The  Father  dwelleth  in  me." 
"  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father."  "  The 
Father  is  in  me,  and  I  in  him."  By  this  He  means  that 
there  is  a  reciprocal  and  organic  union  between  them, 
like  that  which  exists  between  man's  soul  or  mind  and  his 
body.  The  Father  is  the  Divine  nature  as  it  is  in  its  un- 
created and  infinite  essence  ;  the  Son  is  the  human  nature, 
glorified  and  made  Divine,  both  united  in  one  person, 
one  being,  and  making  one  God,  as  man's  spiritual  nature 
and  his  physical  are  united  in  one  human  being  and  make 
one  man.  The  Father,  called  in  the  Old  Testament 
Jehovah  and  God,  is  within  the  Son,  as  man's  mind  is  in 
his  body.  The  Divine  and  the  human  natures  are  distinct 
and  yet  so  closely  knit  together  that  they  form  one  person, 
one  being.  This  union  is  not  one  of  sentiment,  or  agree- 
ment in  character  or  purpose,  like  that  which  may  exist 
between  two  men  who  desire  to  accomplish  the  same  pur- 
pose and  agree  in  the  means  of  doing  it.  It  is  an  organic 
union  ;  it  is  of  the  same  nature  as  that  which  exists  be- 
tween the  mind  and  the  body,  between  will  and  act.  Such 
being  the  intimate,  organic,  perfect  union  between  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  we  do  not  divide  them  in  thought  or 
affection.  When  we  think  of  the  Son  we  think  of  the 
Father,  as  we  think  of  the  whole  man  when  we  think  of 
his  body.  We  think  of  Him  in  the  human  form,  and  we 
have  a  distinct  object  of  thought.  When  we  love  the 
Son  we  love  the  Father,  and  we  have  a  distinct  object  in 
our  minds  for  our  affections  to  rest  upon.    They  are  not 


96       PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


divided  between  two.  They  are  centred  in  one.  Only 
one  person  can  be  supremely  loved. 

Having  gained  a  distinct  conception  of  the  personal 
unity  of  God,  we  can  see  that  the  Divine  attributes  can- 
not be  divided  between  two  persons.  They  must  all  be 
combined  in  one  person,  in  the  one  person  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  Mercy  and  truth  meet  together  in  Him. 
Righteousness  and  peace  kiss  each  other  in  Him.  Mercy 
and  justice  join  hearts  and  hands  in  His  Divine  person. 
This  new  doctrine  solves  the  problem  of  the  unity  of  per- 
son and  the  trinity  in  the  Divine  Being.  It  harmonizes 
all  the  Divine  attributes,  and  presents  to  us  one  Divine 
Being  in  the  human  form,  animated  with  human  love  and 
doing  all  things  for  human  good.  We  may  no  longer 
pray  to  one  Divine  person  to  grant  us  favors  for  the  sake 
of  another,  for  there  is  only  one  Divine  person.  We  no 
longer  fear  the  wrath  of  an  angry  God,  for  there  is  no 
angry  God.  Jesus  Christ  is  Immanuel,  God  manifest  in 
the  flesh,  and  He  is  not  angry.  His  infinite  heart  is  full 
of  love  for  men.  We  only  fear  to  sin  against  such  infinite 
wisdom  and  unchanging  love.  Every  one  must  be  able 
to  see  that  such  a  clear,  distinct,  harmonious,  rational 
knowledge  of  God  and  His  Divine  attributes  must  clear 
the  mind  of  its  doubts  and  conflicting  opinions,  must 
quiet  its  groundless  fears,  and  tend  to  bring  it  into  har- 
monious, orderly,  and  more  intimate  relations  with  Him 
whom  to  know  aright  is  life  everlasting. 

The  New  Church  gives  us  new,  rational,  and  satisfac- 
tory knowledge  concerning  man  as  a  spiritual  being  and 
his  relations  to  the  Lord,  who  is  his  Creator,  Redeemer, 
Saviour,  and  the  constant  source  of  all  his  power  and  life. 


GOD  AND  MAN. 


97 


The  human  spirit  has  generally  been  regarded  in  the 
Christian  world  as  a  force,  as  an  unorganized,  unsubstan- 
tial, formless  essence,  as  a  breath,  an  influence,  bearing 
somewhat  the  same  relation  to  the  man  himself  that  steam 
bears  to  the  engine.  All  conceptions  of  it  have  been 
vague  and  unsatisfactory.  There  has  been  but  little  ad- 
vance beyond  the  mere  affirmation  of  its  existence.  Con- 
sequently all  ideas  about  its  nature  and  modes  of  operation 
have  been  vague,  indistinct,  and  unreal. 

The  New  Church  regards  the  spirit  in  an  entirely  new 
way.  According  to  its  doctrines  the  spirit  is  the  man 
himself  in  the  human  form,  and  the  seat  of  all  his  power 
and  life.  It  is  organized  of  spiritual  substances,  as  the 
material  body  is  organized  of  material  substances,  and 
possesses  all  the  organs,  external  and  internal,  in  general 
and  particular,  that  compose  the  material  body.  It  has 
a  head,  trunk,  and  limbs.  It  has  eyes  and  ears,  brain 
and  face  and  vocal  organs,  heart  and  lungs,  arteries  and 
veins  and  nerves.  The  spiritual  organs  perform  relatively 
the  same  functions  that  the  material  organs  perform. 
Spiritual  lungs  breathe  a  spiritual  atmosphere  ;  the  heart 
propels  a  spiritual  blood  through  arteries  and  veins  ;  the 
nerves  give  sensation  and  power  ;  the  hands  can  grasp 
spiritual  objects,  and  the  feet  can  walk  upon  a  spiritual 
earth  ;  the  eye  opens  to  the  light  which  flows  from  the 
spiritual  sun,  and  the  ear  vibrates  in  harmony  with  the 
modulations  of  the  spiritual  atmosphere. 

As  a  whole  and  in  each  least  part  the  spirit  is  in  the 
human  form.  The  common  idea  has  been  that  the  body 
was  first  formed  and  then  the  spirit  was  breathed  into  it, 
as  men  make  an  engine  and  then  set  it  in  motion  by 
E      s  9 


98        PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 

steam.  The  new  doctrine  teaches  that  the  spirit  itself 
moulds  the  body  into  its  own  form,  weaves  its  fine  and 
delicate  textures  in  its  own  loom,  and  clothes  itself  in 
ever}^  least  part  with  it,  making  it  a  medium  of  communi- 
cation Avith  the  material  world,  the  house  in  which  it 
dwells,  a  complicated  and  miraculous  instrument  adjusted 
with  infinite  precision  to  all  the  forms  and  forces  of  mat- 
ter, for  the  purpose  of  gaining  natural  ideas  and  delights 
to  serve  as  materials  for  the  de\  elopment  of  the  afit'ections 
and  the  intellectual  faculties. 

But  this  is  merely  a  temporary  service.  The  material 
body  renders  the  same  service  to  the  spirit  that  the  husk 
does  to  the  corn,  the  chaff  to  the  wheat.  The  spirit  is 
immortal.  It  was  made,  and  by  its  very  nature  ordained, 
to  dwell  in  a  spiritual  world  corresponding  to  its  own 
nature.  But  it  must  have  a  basis  to  rest  upon.  It  must 
have  vessels  to  hold  its  fine  and  fluent  substances  while 
they  are  being  prepared  for  distinct  and  permanent  exist- 
ence. 

According  to  this  idea  the  spirit  is  the  real,  substan- 
tial man  and  the  seat  of  all  human  power.  It  is  the 
spiritual  eye  that  sees.  The  material  eye  only  serves  as 
an  optical  instrument  to  bring  it  into  such  relations  to 
material  light  that  images  of  material  things  can  be 
formed  on  its  delicate  canvas.  The  material  ear  cannot 
hear.  It  is  the  spiritual  ear  within  that  becomes  mo\  ed 
by  its  vibrations  and  perceives  harmonious  or  discordant 
sounds.  The  same  is  true  of  all  the  senses.  They  are 
simply  the  material  instruments  which  the  spiritual  senses 
use  to  gain  entrance  into  the  material  world  and  accom- 
modate themselves  to  its  substances  and  forces. 


GOD  AXD  MAy. 


99 


Men  have  so  long  been  accustomed  to  regard  the  spirit 
as  a  formless  essence,  a  merely  abstract  entity,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  disabuse  their  minds  of  the  error  and  convince 
them  that  the  spirit  is  organic  and  substantial.  It  is  gen- 
erally supposed  that  the  way  to  gain  any  true  conception 
of  spirit  is  to  deny  it  all  the  qualities  of  matter.  It  seems 
to  be  taken  for  granted  that  only  matter  possesses  sub- 
stance and  form,  and  that  when  we  attribute  these  prop- 
erties to  spirit  we  materialize  it.  But  this  is  not  so. 
There  are  some  attributes  that  are  essential  to  existence. 
It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  the  existence  of  any  object 
that  is  destitute  of  substance  and  form.  The  essential 
idea  of  existence  is  that  of  standing  forth  in  substance 
and  form.  Every  one  will  acknowledge  that  God  is  the 
most  real  and  substantial  being  in  the  universe.  He  must 
be  substance  and  form  in  their  origin  and  essential  qual- 
ities. There  can  be  no  power  without  some  substance 
that  embodies  it.  It  inheres  in  the  nature  of  things  and 
in  the  nature  of  human  conceptions,  that  if  there  is  a 
Divine  Being,  there  must  be  Divine  substances  ;  if  there 
are  spiritual  beings  and  a  spiritual  world,  there  must  be 
spiritual  substances  and  spiritual  forms.  To  deny  their 
existence  is  denial  of  God  and  of  everything  that  is  not 
material. 

But  we  have  ocular  demonstration  that  spirit  is  sub- 
stance and  form  and  possesses  power.  This  is  a  kind  of 
testimony  that  men  have  often  demanded.  ' '  Show  me 
a  spirit,"  they  say  ;  "let  me  feel  it.  Let  me  see  spirit 
exert  itself  and  produce  some  sensible  effect."  The  truth 
is,  all  that  is  done  by  the  body  is  done  by  the  spirit's 
power.    There  is  no  power  in  the  material  substances 


lOO      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


that  compose  the  material  body  to  organize  themselves 
into  the  human  form  and  acquire  the  faculty  of  seeing, 
or  hearing,  or  feeling.  Do  oxygen  and  hydrogen  and 
carbon  and  the  insensate,  inorganic  mould  possess  any 
such  power  in  themselves  ?  The  material  body  is  con- 
tinually wasting  away,  and  if  it  were  not  supplied  with 
new  substances,  it  would  soon  become  dissipated.  What 
power  and  miraculous  skill  weaves  the  new  substances 
into  the  old  forms  without  any  mistake,  and  preserves 
the  body  from  annihilation  ?  Can  the  food  we  eat  do  it 
of  itself? 

But  this  is  not  all.  When  the  spirit  leaves  the  body, 
all  power  and  consciousness  cease.  The  eye  may  be  as 
perfect  in  its  organization  as  ever,  but  it  cannot  see.  The 
ear  and  the  other  senses  have  lost  all  power  of  conscious- 
ness. Have  lost  it,  do  I  say  ?  No,  they  have  not  lost  it, 
for  they  never  possessed  it.  The  material  eye  never 
saw  ;  the  material  ear  never  heard  ;  the  material  hand 
never  felt  ;  the  material  heart  never  beat,  of  themselves. 
If  you  were  in  a  factory  where  all  the  wheels  were  hum- 
ming with  motion,  would  you  not  know  that  some  power 
not  in  themselves  was  dri\  ing  them  ?  And  if  they  stopped, 
would  you  not  know  that  tlie  power  had  been  withdrawn 
from  them  ?  Have  we  not  just  as  certain  evidence  that 
the  organs  of  the  material  body  have  no  inherent,  self- 
derived  power  in  themselves  to  act  ;  that  they  must  be 
moved  by  some  sj)iritual  force  ;  and  when  that  force  is 
withdrawn  they  must  return  to  dust?  It  seems  strange 
that  rational  men  will  ask  for  evidence  of  the  e.xistence 
of  sjiiritual  substances  and  forces  when  they  perceive 
them  in  constant  operation  within  and  around  them. 


GOD  AXD  MAN. 


loi 


We  have  the  evidence  of  our  own  consciousness  also 
of  the  substantial  and  permanent  nature  of  the  spirit.  It 
is  now  a  generally-accepted  fact  that  thought  and  affec- 
tion are  indestructible.  No  one  can  divest  himself  of 
ideas  or  truths  he  has  once  gained.  They  may  be  for- 
gotten, as  we  say,  but  they  remain  in  the  mind  and  can 
be  recalled.  If  the  mind  or  spirit  were  a  mist  or  a  form- 
less es.sence,  it  could  be  dispersed  like  a  vapor,  and  all 
the  ideas  and  affections  that  were  embodied  in  it  would 
be  dissipated.  But  they  are  not,  and  never  can  be. 
Amputate  a  limb  and  it  ceases  to  be  a  part  of  the  human 
body.  But  a  thought  or  an  affection  cannot  be  ampu- 
tated. Destroy  the  body  and  the  spirit  is  not  injured. 
The  material  body  is  evanescent  ;  it  is  constantly  passing 
away  like  a  flowing  stream  ;  but  the  spirit  remains  un- 
touched, substantial,  immortal. 

If  the  relation  of  the  spirit  to  the  body  is  such  as  I 
have  represented  it  to  be,  the  spirit  must  be  the  man 
himself  It  must  be  in  the  human  form,  because  the 
material  body  is  cast  into  its  mould.  All  the  organs  are 
woven  into  a  garment  to  clothe  the  organs  of  the  spirit. 
The  spirit  must  therefore  be  composed  of  a  series  of 
organic  forms  or  organs,  which,  combined  into  one,  be- 
come the  human  form.  What,  then,  is  the  spirit?  It  is 
a  human  being  in  a  human  form  as  a  whole  and  in  its 
least  particulars.  It  is  substantial,  and  the  substances 
of  which  it  is  composed  are  untouched  by  the  dissolution 
of  the  material  body  ;  the  human  spirit  endures  forever. 

Having  gained  a  clear  and  true  idea  of  what  the  human 
spirit  is,  and  of  the  distinction  between  the  spiritual  body 
and  the  material  body,  we  have  gained  the  point  of  view 

9* 


I02      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

from  which  we  can  see  the  trinity  and  unity  in  man  which 
are  essential  to  personal  beings,  and  from  this  we  may  see 
more  clearly  the  nature  of  the  Divine  trinity  in  the  one 
person  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

We  have  good  grounds  for  looking  to  man  to  find  the 
trinity  in  God,  because  man  was  created  in  the  image 
of  God  and  after  His  likeness.  If  man  was  made  in  the 
image  of  God,  we  must  find  in  him  a  likeness  of  God. 
God  must  be  in  the  human  form.  The  Divine  nature 
must  be  composed  of  attributes  corresponding  to  those 
which  compose  man.  The  Divine  faculties  must  sustain 
the  same  relations  to  one  another  which  human  faculties 
sustain.  If  there  is  a  trinity  in  God,  there  must  be  a 
trinity  in  man.  If  there  is  a  trinity  in  man,  there  must 
be  a  trinity  in  God.  If  the  trinity  in  man  makes  one 
person,  one  human  being,  the  trinity  in  God  must  make 
one  Divine  Person,  one  Divine  Being.  If  this  trinity  in 
God  makes  three  persons,  each  composed  of  the  same 
substance  and  possessing  the  same  attributes,  the  trinity 
in  man  must  make  three  persons,  each  composed  of  the 
same  substance  and  possessing  the  same  qualities.  An 
image  must  have  the  same  form  as  the  original,  and  so 
far  as  it  is  an  image  it  must  be  like  it. 

What  are  the  three  essential  factors  of  a  human  being  ? 
Are  they  not  the  soul  or  spirit,  the  body,  and  the  power 
of  the  man  reaching  forth  to  affect  objects  and  beings 
outside  himself?  These  three  are  perfectly  distinct. 
The  spirit  is  not  the  body,  and  the  body  is  not  the  spirit, 
and  the  influence  or  operation  of  the  man  is  not  the  spirit 
or  the  body.  But  the  three  make  one  person,  one  man. 
If  cither  were  absent  the  other  two  would  not  be  a  man. 


GOD  AND  MAN. 


We  may  regard  the  subject  in  another  way.  Man  is 
essentially  composed  of  love,  intelligence,  and  the  union 
of  these  factors  in  thought  or  deed.  The  love  or  will  is 
not  the  intellect,  and  neither  of  them  is  thought  or  act. 
Love  does  not  make  a  man  ;  action  does  not  make  a 
man.  A  human  being  is  the  product  of  the  three.  But 
the  three  do  not  make  three  persons.  There  is  the  same 
trinity  of  Divine  love,  Divine  wisdom,  and  Divine  opera- 
tion in  God. 

To  return  to  man,  the  image  of  God.  The  spirit  or 
soul  is  the  father  of  the  body.  It  begat  it  and  formed  it 
and  continually  creates  it.  If  the  material  body  had 
consciousness  and  power  of  its  own,  it  could  truly  say,  I 
came  out  from  the  spirit.  I  can  do  nothing  of  myself. 
The  spirit  does  the  works.  It  could  say  everything  that 
the  Saviour  says  concerning  His  relations  to  the  Father  ; 
and  yet  the  spirit  and  the  body  make  one  man,  as  the 
Father  and  Son  make  one  God. 

Look  at  the  subject  in  another  way.  The  soul  is  in 
the  body.  Jesus  Christ  says,  "The  Father  is  in  me." 
"  No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me."  There 
is  no  way  in  which  we  can  get  access  to  a  man's  mind  or 
spirit  but  by  his  body.  If  the  body  could  speak,  it  could 
say  in  truth,  No  one  can  come  to  the  spirit  but  by  me. 
I  am  the  way,  and  the  only  way. 

Here  is  a  larger  and  more  important  truth  than  may  at 
first  appear.  By  coming  to  the  Father  something  more 
is  meant  than  coming  to  Him  in  space,  as  one  man  ap- 
proaches another.  It  means  that  we  cannot  come  to 
Him  in  thought, — that  is,  we  cannot  think  of  Him  truly 
in  any  other  way  than  as  He  is  manifested  in  Jesus 


104     PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

Christ.  How  is  He  brought  forth  to  view  in  Him  ?  In 
the  human  form,  as  a  Divine  Man.  The  agnostics  are 
right  when  they  say  that  God  as  an  infinite  and  formless 
spirit,  "without  body,  parts,  or  passions,"  is  unthink- 
able. There  is  no  image,  no  idea  in  the  mind,  no  dis- 
tinct subject  for  the  thought  to  rest  on.  We  can  only 
think  of  things  and  beings  that  have  substance  and  form. 
There  are  no  beings  or  things  destitute  of  these  essentials 
of  existence.  If  I  should  ask  you  to  think  of  a  tree  or 
an  animal  or  a  man  that  had  no  substance  and  no  form, 
you  would  say  it  was  absurd,  because  you  know  it  to  be 
impossible.  For  the  same  reason  we  can  only  come  to 
Jehovah,  the  Father,  in  thought  as  He  appears  in  Jesus 
Christ ;  and  He  appears  in  Him  as  a  man,  in  the  human 
form.     ' '  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father. ' ' 

For  the  same  reason  we  can  come  to  Him  in  our  affec- 
ions  in  no  other  way  than  by  Jesus  Christ.  No  one  can 
love  a  being  of  whom  he  can  gain  no  conception.  We 
cannot  love  a  formless  essence,  an  abstract  virtue  or 
power.  Think  of  the  absurdity  of  loving  an  abstract 
child,  a  woman  or  a  man  without  substance  or  form  !  It 
may  be  said  that  we  do  love  an  ideal  person.  There  is 
some  truth  in  that.  But  our  ideal  is  the  image  we  form 
in  our  minds.  So,  doubtless,  every  one  has  some  con- 
cejition  in  his  mind  of  God.  He  makes  an  image  of 
Him,  even  while  dejiying  that  He  has  any  form.  But 
here  the  image  is  formed  for  us.  The  Word  is  made 
flesh,  and  dwells  among  men.  "God  manifest  in  the 
flesh."  God  manifest  in  the  human  form.  God  come 
down  to  men,  associating  with  them,  teaching  them  by 
word  of  mouth,  by  precept  and  example  ;  the  tender, 


GOD  AA'D  MAN. 


merciful  God,  healing  their  diseases,  sympathizing  with 
them  in  their  sorrows  and  sufferings  ;  a  kind,  patient, 
pure,  unselfish,  noble,  wise  God  ;  and  yet  a  man.  He 
has  a  human  heart  ;  He  works  in  human  ways  ;  He  has 
human  sympathies.  This  is  the  way  He  is  revealed  to  us 
in  Jesus  Christ.  He  is  revealed  not  merely  by  example 
and  formal  instruction,  but  He  is  embodied  in  the  form 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Jesus  Christ  is  His  form.  His  body.  His 
love.  His  wisdom.  His  way  of  working  among  men  and 
saving  them.  The  love  and  wisdom  of  Jesus  Christ  are 
the  Divine  love  and  wisdom.  God  reveals  Himself  in 
Him  even  to  the  human  senses,  in  a  form  comprehensible 
to  the  child.  When  we  think  of  Jesus  Christ  we  think 
of  the  Father  ;  when  we  love  Jesus  Christ  we  love  the 
Father  ;  when  we  pray  to  Jesus  Christ  we  pray  to  the 
Father  ;  when  we  worship  Jesus  Christ  we  worship  the 
Father. .  We  think  of  Him  in  the  same  way  and  in  the 
same  sense  as,  in  thinking  of  the  bodily  form  of  a  friend, 
we  think  of  his  mind  ;  when  we  speak  to  the  body  we 
speak  to  the  soul. 

According  to  this  doctrine  we  have  the  whole  Divine 
trinity  in  one  personal  Being,  in  Jesus  Christ,  as  we  have 
the  whole  human  trinity  in  every  man.  We  have  the 
whole  trinity  united  in  the  human  form,  of  which  we  can 
gain  a  distinct  idea.  The  mind  is  not  confused  and  dis- 
couraged by  trying  to  think  the  unthinkable  ;  it  is  not 
distracted  by  thinking  that  there  are  three  Divine  per- 
sons and  saying  that  there  is  but  one  God.  We  do  not 
pray  to  a  being  of  whom  we  say  we  can  form  no  concep- 
tion— but  to  whom  we  speak  and  of  whom  we  try  to 
think — to  grant  us  favors  for  the  sake  of  or  in  the  name 


lo6      PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


of  another  Divine  person.  We  go  to  Jesus  Christ,  who 
is  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  as  a  Httle  child  goes  to  his 
father,  in  a  plain  and  simple  way,  without  trying  to  make 
any  metaphysical  distinctions,  and  ask  Him  to  grant  the 
help  and  blessing  we  need  for  His  own  love  and  mercy's 
sake.  We  can  think  of  Him  ;  we  can  love  Him  ;  we  can 
trust  Him.    He  is  the  way,  the  truth  and  the  life. 

If  Jesus  Christ  was  really  God  Himself  manifest  in  the 
flesh,  and  not  merely  an  ambassador  from  God,  or  a  dis- 
tinct person  standing  between  men  and  Him,  you  can 
see  what  an  important  bearing  a  true  conception  of  His 
character  and  mission  will  have  upon  the  conditions  and 
means  of  human  salvation.  It  places  it  on  new  grounds. 
It  takes  it  out  of  all  that  is  merely  formal,  legal,  tech- 
nical, and  arbitrary,  and  demonstrates  to  our  senses  how 
the  one  and  only  Divine  Being  loves  and  pities  His  chil- 
dren, and  what  practical  work  He  has  done  and  is  doing 
to  save  men  from  sin  and  misery  and  raise  them  up 
to  holiness  and  eternal  life.  God  has  generally  been 
represented  as  an  austere,  inexorable  embodiment  of 
that  natural,  mercantile  form  of  justice  which  demands 
the  full  measure  of  punishment  for  every  offence.  But 
justice  has  a  higher  meaning  than  this.  Divine  justice  is 
not  vengeance  ;  it  is  Divine  love  directed  by  Divine  wis- 
dom to  secure  the  highest  good  to  men.  There  is  an 
immense  difference  between  sending  some  one  to  do  a 
painful  work  and  doing  it  yourself.  If  Jesus  Christ  was 
God  Himself,  clothed  with  a  human  nature  and  a  material 
body,  by  means  of  which  He  came  down  to  human  com- 
prehension, living,  laboring,  teaching,  and  dying  as  to 
His  material  body  among  men  and  for  them,  every  one 


GOD  AND  MAN. 


can  see  in  what  a  beautiful  and  attractive  form  it  presents 
the  Divine  character.  We  can  know  and  love  and  de- 
hght  to  serve  such  a  Being. 

This  is  the  hght  in  which  the  doctrines  of  the  New 
Church  present  the  Divine  character.  They  dispel  the 
cloud  of  misconceptions  which  have  obscured  it.  They 
bring  the  Lord  down  to  men,  and  present  Him  in  such 
simple  and  clear  form  that  a  child  can  understand  some- 
thing of  Him  and  learn  to  know  and  love  Him.  They 
take  nothing  away  from  His  sanctity.  They  do  not 
destroy  the  law  or  the  prophets  ;  they  help  men  to  un- 
derstand them.  They  do  not  break  the  force  and  sanctity 
of  the  least  of  the  commandments,  or  teach  men  to  break 
them.  On  the  contrary,  they  show  that  they  are  the 
immutable  laws  of  the  Divine  order,  and,  consequently, 
that  they  cannot  be  broken  without  loss  and  suffering. 
Their  whole  scope  and  tendency  is  to  assist  men  in 
solving  the  problems  of  life  ;  to  make  the  way  to  the 
attainment  of  the  highest  good  plain  and  easier  to  walk 
in  ;  to  reveal  the  Lord  to  men  in  a  clearer  and  more 
attractive  light ;  to  give  man  a  truer  and  nobler  concep- 
tion of  himself  and  of  the  capacities  of  his  own  nature 
for  happiness,  and  to  show  the  means  that  lie  within  his 
reach  to  attain  the  highest  good. 


THE  DIVINR  METHOD  OF  CREATING. 


the  word  of  the  LORD  were  the  heavens  made ;  and  all 
the  host  of  them  by  the  breath  of  his  month." — Psalm  xxxiii.  6. 

THERE  is  but  little  said  in  the  letter  of  the  Word 


concerning  the  creation  of  the  universe,  except  the 
bare  announcement  of  the  fact  that  the  Lord  is  the 
Creator  of  all  things,  and  that  all  things  were  created  by 
"the  word  of  the  Lord"  or  the  Divine  truth.  The 
conclusions  we  form  concerning  the  creation,  from  this 
declaration,  will  depend  upon  the  idea  that  we  have  of 
' '  the  word  of  the  Lord'  '  and  ' '  the  breath  of  his  mouth. ' ' 
If  by  "word"  we  understand  a  mere  vocal  expression, 
we  shall  come  to  the  conclusion  generally  entertained 
upon  the  subject,  that  the  Lord  spoke  the  universe  into 
existence.  He  said.  Let  it  be,  and  it  became.  "He 
spake,  and  it  was  done  ;  he  commanded,  and  it  stood 
fast."  According  to  this  idea  the  universe  was  created 
without  any  modes  or  processes  from  cause  to  effect. 
There  were  no  steps  in  it.  It  is  true,  science  demon- 
strates pretty  clearly  that  our  earth  has  been  gradually 
evolved  from  a  chaotic  state,  and  for  many  thousands  of 
years  continued  to  advance  towards  a  condition  suitable 
for  the  habitation  of  man.  But  the  theologian  evades 
the  difficulty  by  supposing  that  the  act  of  creating  was 
speaking  into  existence  the  elements  out  of  which  the 
universe  was  gradually  formed. 

This  idea  of  the  creation  practically  severs  the  universe 


1 08 


rilR  DIVINE  METHOD  OE  CREATING. 


from  any  living,  present  connection  with  the  Creator.  It 
imphes  that  He  once  created  it  and  committed  it  to  the 
keeping  of  certain  huvs  which  men  call  the  laws  of  nature, 
and  now  He  stands  as  it  were  aloof  from  it,  watching 
its  operations  somewhat  as  a  man  makes  a  machine  and 
then  watches  its  movements. 

But  this  is  not  the  idea  of  the  New  Church.  Our  doc- 
trines teach  us  that  the  Lord  is  an  everlasting  or  continual 
Creator,  and  that  He  creates  all  things  from  Himself 
The  universe  is  a  perpetual  creation,  continually  renewed 
and  increased  and  held  in  existence  by  the  same  power 
which  first  gave  it  being.  The  universe  was  not  created 
out  of  nothing  by  a  vocal  expression,  but  from  the  Lord 
Himself  by  the  continual  operation  of  His  Divine  love 
and  wisdom.  It  is  not  in  any  sense  fixed  and  independent 
of  Him.  It  is  not  cut  off  or  severed  from  Him  and  held 
in  form  and  existence  by  laws.  Laws  have  no  power. 
They  are  merely  the  Divine  method  of  working.  The 
Lord  works  in,  through,  and  by  them.  There  is  not  a 
single  thing  in  the  universe  that  can  maintain  itself  a 
moment  when  severed  from  the  Lord.  The  hardest 
metal  or  stone  would  vanish  from  sight  and  from  existence 
as  quickly  as  light  vanishes  from  the  room  when  you 
remove  the  luminous  body  from  which  it  flows,  if  its 
connection  with  the  Lord  were  severed.  The  outflowing 
of  light  from  a  luminous  body  well  illustrates  the  moment- 
ary dependence  of  every  created  thing  upon  the  Lord  for 
its  continued  existence. 

According  to  this  idea  the  universe  is  a  constant 
creation.  All  its  forces  are  continually  derived  from  the 
Lord.    Nothing  acts  of  itself    The  force  of  gravity  is 

lO 


no      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


not  inherent  in  matter.  It  does  not  originate  in  the  earth 
or  tlie  sun.  It  comes  momentarily  from  the  Lord.  The 
attraction  of  cohesion  is  not  a  power  of  itself,  but  the 
Divine  method  of  forming  individual  things  and  holding 
them  together,  and  the  exercise  of  power  is  as  constant  as 
the  effects  of  it.  Suppose  the  power  we  call  cohesive 
attraction  should  be  in  part  withdrawn  from  solid  sub- 
stances, they  would  all  fall  asunder,  and  there  would  be 
no  individual  forms  or  things.  The  earth  would  be  a 
fluid  mass.  Withdraw  it  still  further  and  there  would  be 
nothing  but  gases,  and  if  the  process  were  still  continued 
matter  would  be  annihilated.  This  truth  is  perfectly 
illustrated  by  an  analogous  process  in  the  human  body. 
The  body  is  organized  by  the  soul  and  kept  in  existence 
as  an  organized  form  by  it.  If  you  sever  any  part  of  the 
body  from  its  connection  with  the  soul,  disorganization 
begins  to  take  place,  and  the  severed  part  is  dissipated. 
So  it  would  be  with  the  material  universe,  only  more  fully 
and  instantaneously,  if  it  could  be  severed  from  the  ever- 
creating  power  of  the  Lord.  We  arrive,  then,  at  this 
important  truth,  that  the  universe  is  a  perpetual  creation 
from  the  Lord,  and  has  a  living  connection  with  Him. 

Such  being  the  case,  the  question  naturally  arises, 
What  is  there  in  the  Lord  from  which  or  out  of  which 
the  universe  can  be  created  ?  The  Lord  in  His  essential 
being  is  love  and  wisdom  or  goodness  and  truth.  It 
must  be  from  or  out  of  goodness  and  truth  that  the  uni- 
verse is  created.  Most  persons  conceive  of  love  or  good- 
ness as  a  mere  affection  or  state  of  the  soul,  and  of  wisdom 
or  truth  as  knowledge  or  simply  knowing.  But  this  is 
not  the  true  idea.    The  Divine  love  and  wisdom  are  sub- 


THE  DIVINE  METHOD  OF  CREATING.  m 

stance  and  form  itself.  The  Lord  exists  in  Himself,  not 
from  another.  He  must  be  substance  itself,  for  He  gives 
subsistence  to  everything.  If  substance  is  that  which 
stands  under,  is  the  origin  and  support  of  all  things, 
surely  the  Lord  must  be  that  substance  ;  and  if  He  gives 
form  to  everything,  there  must  be  something  in  Him  that 
gives  the  form.  He  must  be  the  Former  of  all  forms. 
He  must  be  form  itself.  The  inmost  essence  of  the  Lord 
is  Divine  love,  and  the  form  of  that  love  is  Divine  wis- 
dom or  truth,  and  from  Divine  truth  all  things  were 
created.  The  declaration  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  then, 
that  "by  the  word  of  the  Lord  were  the  heavens  made," 
is  literally  true,  when  we  have  a  correct  idea  of  what 
"  the  word  of  the  Lord"  or  Divine  truth  is. 

It  is  true  we  can  form  no  adequate  conception  of  what 
the  Divine  goodness  or  truth  is  in  itself.  The  intensity, 
power,  and  perfection  of  the  Divine  are  altogether  above 
the  conception  of  the  highest  angel,  much  more  that  of 
man.  We  are  so  weak  and  ignorant  that  we  do  not  know 
what  anything,  even  the  most  common  object  that  is 
daily  before  our  eyes,  is  in  itself  We  should  find  it  as 
impossible  to  define  what  matter  is  as  what  spiritual  or 
Divine  substance  is.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that 
all  things  have  their  origin  in  the  Lord  and  flow  from  Him 
as  the  only  real  and  essential  substance. 

When  we  say  the  universe  is  an  emanation  or  outbirth 
from  the  Lord,  it  must  not  be  understood  that  gross 
material  forms  come  directly  from  Him,  but  those  sub- 
stances and  forms  from  which  the  material  universe  was 
created.  The  creation  proceeds  from  the  Lord  by  dis- 
tinct steps  or  degrees.    This  may  be  illustrated  by  the 


112      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


creation  of  the  planets  from  the  sun.  Granite  and  iron 
and  diamonds  do  not  proceed  immediately  from  the  sun. 
The  first  emanation  from  the  sun  is  matter  in  its  purest 
forms,  as  an  aura  or  ether ;  then  it  becomes  a  gas,  a  fluid, 
and  finally  a  solid.  A  part  of  this  process  we  know  from 
actual  observation.  For  instance,  oxygen  and  hydrogen 
gases  by  combination  form  water,  and  water  becomes  a 
solid  in  ice.  Here  we  can  trace  the  formation  of  a  solid 
down  three  steps.  We  do  not  yet  know  much  about 
light  and  heat  and  electricity,  or  those  substances  which 
are  called  the  imponderable  agents  in  chemistry.  But  we 
know  that  they  act  a  most  important  part  in  all  the 
changes  and  activities  of  matter.  They  are  doubtless  to 
the  grosser  forms  of  matter  what  the  soul  is  to  the  human 
body,  and  from  analogy  and  experiment  there  is  good 
reason  to  believe  that  the  grosser  forms  of  matter  are 
created  from  them,  as  water  and  all  other  fluids  and 
solids  are  created  from  gases.  Solids  are  the  last  step 
in  the  creation,  where  the  li\ing  forms  and  substances 
become  inert  and  dead. 

Tlie  first  emanation  fi  om  the  Lord  is  not  matter,  nor 
even  spiritual  substance  in  its  lowest  forms,  but  a  sun  so 
intense  and  glowing  with  the  Divine  love  and  wisdom 
that  even  the  angels  cannot  bear  its  heat  and  light  except 
as  it  becomes  modified  and  adapted  to  their  states.  This 
Divine  sun  flows  from  the  Lord  and  encompasses  Him, 
as  light  and  heat  flow  from  our  sun  and  encompass  it. 
This  sun  is  pure  love  and  wisdom  as  they  flow  from  the 
Lord.  It  is  also  the  substance  from  which  and  out  of 
wliich  the  .spiritual  world  is  created,  in  the  same  manner 
relatively  as  material  worlds  are  created  from  the  material 


THE  DIVIXE  METHOD  OF  CREATING.  113 

sun.  That  sun  appears  to  the  angels  remote,  as  our  sun 
does  to  us.  It  is  also  the  centre  of  the  whole  universe, 
both  spiritual  and  natural.  From  it  the  spiritual  world  is 
created,  and  the  souls  of  men  are  formed.  Thus  man  is 
a  being  organized  of  spiritual  substances  derived  from  the 
Lord,  and  is  kin  to  all  things  in  the  spiritual  world. 

As  the  spiritual  world  was  created  from  the  spiritual 
sun,  of  spiritual  substances,  it  is  a  more  substantial  and 
real  and  living  world  than  this.  But  it  is  not  a  simple 
world  in  which  all  parts  are  alike  ;  it  exists  in  various 
forms  and  degrees.  The  Divine  substance  ever  flowing 
from  the  Lord  descends  in  distinct  degrees.  The  first 
emanation  from  the  Lord  is  the  spiritual  sun  by  which  He 
is  encompassed  ;  the  first  emanation  from  the  spiritual 
sun  is  the  celestial  heaven,  in  which  the  highest  angels 
dwell,  who  can  receive  the  Lord's  love  and  wisdom  in 
their  highest  degree  and  in  the  purest  created  forms. 
This  heaven  is  as  distinct  from  all  the  others  as  the  air  is 
from  the  solid  rock. 

The  next  remove  from  the  spiritual  sun  is  the  spiritual 
heaven,  which  is  a  degree  lower  than  the  celestial  heaven, 
and  is  distinct  from  that  heaven  as  it  is  distinct  from  the 
spiritual  sun,  or  as  our  earth  is  from  our  sun.  This 
heaven  is  the  abode  of  spiritual  angels.  They  are  called 
spiritual  angels  in  whom  a  degree  of  life  has  been  opened 
corresponding  to  the  substances  of  which  the  spiritual 
heaven  is  composed. 

The  next  remove  from  the  spiritual  sun  is  the  natural 
heaven,  which  is  the  lowest  form  of  the  spiritual  and  is 
only  one  degree  above  the  material.  Thus  there  are 
three  heavens,  each  distinct  from  the  other,  and  formed 
h  10* 


114      PROGRESS  /.V  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

of  spiritual  substances  in  three  distinct  degrees.  The 
main  truth  I  wish  to  present  now  is  that  the  creation  pro- 
ceeds from  the  Lord  by  distinct  steps,  each  lower  plane 
being  formed  from  and  through  the  next  higher  and  thus 
all  from  the  Lord. 

From  spiritual  substances  matter  is  formed.  Not  gross 
and  solid  matter,  but  matter  in  its  purest  forms.  The 
first  step  from  the  spiritual  to  the  material  is  the  suns  of 
the  various  systems  in  the  material  universe.  According 
to  the  philosophy  of  the  New  Church,  these  suns  are 
pure  fire,  from  which  issue  light  and  heat.  This  pure  fire 
is  the  most  subtile  form  of  matter ;  so  subtile  and  pure 
that  we  can  obtain  but  little  if  any  knowledge  of  it  through 
our  gross  and  material  senses,  and  yet  it  is  inert  and  dead 
compared  with  spirit.  From  the  suns  the  A  arious  planets 
or  earths  are  formed  by  a  process  exactly  analogous  to 
that  by  which  the  various  spiritual  worlds  or  heavens  are 
formed.  The  Divine  love  and  wisdom,  which  we  must 
remember  are  not  names  but  real  substances  and  forms, 
flow  down  from  the  Lord  by  distinct  degrees,  until  that 
which  was  Di\'ine  and  infinite  and  above  all  created  re- 
ception and  comprehension,  becomes  dead  and  solid 
matter,  as  the  metal  and  stone.  Thus  there  is  a  living 
connection  between  the  rock  and  the  inmost  Divine  of 
the  Lord  ;  there  is  a  chain  of  causes  and  effects  running 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  binding  all  together  into 
one  whole. 

Reasoning  from  analogy  and  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  Divine  love  and  wisdom,  I  think  we  are  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  material  universe  js  not  yet  complete, 
and  never  will  be.    The  Lord  is  now  creating  new  worlds, 


THE  DIVINE  METHOD  OF  CREATING. 


and  will  continue  to  create  them  to  eternity.  There  are 
discoveries  in  astronomy  which  seem  to  confirm  this  con- 
clusion. The  Lord  is  not  idle.  Life  must  continually 
flow  from  Him.  He  is  continually  creating  new  souls, 
must  He  not  be  continually  creating  new  worlds  ? 

The  truth  that  the  universe  is  a  perpetual  creation 
from  the  Divine  sun  answers  the  question  which  is  often 
asked,  and  which  has  been  supposed  to  be  unanswer- 
able, What  keeps  up  the  heat  of  the  sun  ?  It  is  known 
that  all  heated  bodies  gradually  give  off  their  heat  and 
grow  cooler.  And  it  has  been  argued  from  this  that  the 
sun  must  eventually  cease  to  shine  and  give  off  heat,  and 
become  opaque  like  the  earth.  Others  have  imagined 
that  the  comets  supply  the  sun  with  fuel,  and  in  some 
unknown  way  keep  its  fires  continually  burning.  But 
the  truth  is,  the  fire  of  the  sun  is  perpetually  created  by 
the  Lord  from  the  spiritual  world.  The  suns  themselves 
are  an  emanation  from  Him,  as  light  and  heat  are  an 
emanation  from  them,  and  they  cannot  cease  to  shine, 
for  they  are  perpetually  fed  from  the  exhaustless  fountain 
of  the  Divine  life.  Thus  the  stability  and  perpetuity  of 
the  universe  does  not  depend  upon  any  laws  or  relations 
of  matter,  but  upon  the  immutable  order  and  infinite 
sources  of  Him  who  is  life  and  substance  and  form  itself. 

This  sublime  truth,  that  the  universe  is  a  continual 
creation  from  the  Lord,  reveals  to  us,  if  we  can  correctly 
understand  it,  how  the  Lord  is  everywhere  present  in  the 
universe.  There  is  not  a  stone  in  the  street  that  is  not 
connected  with  the  Divine  by  the  presence  within  it  of 
living  forces  from  Him.  As  the  universe  descends  from 
the  Lord,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  recedes  from  Him 


Ii6      PROGRESS  7X  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDCE. 


by  distinct  steps  or  degrees,  it  always  retains  a  vital  con- 
nection with  Him,  upon  which  all  its  activity  and  life  and 
its  very  existence  depend.  It  is  a  common  idea  that 
the  Lord  created  the  first  plant,  and  gave  to  it  the  power 
of  propagating  itself,  and  then  His  direct  agency  ceased. 
But  this  is  an  entire  mistake.  Power  cannot  be  commu- 
nicated in  that  way.  A  machine  can  only  be  kept  in 
motion  by  the  continual  application  of  the  motive  power. 
The  Divine  agency  is  just  as  necessary  to  the  creation  of 
the  last  plant  as  the  first.  The  actual  presence  of  a  sub- 
stantial and  living  element  from  the  Lord  through  the 
spiritual  sun  and  the  spiritual  world  forms  the  plant  in 
every  part  of  its  progress.  It  is  the  same  in  the  animal 
kingdom.  The  organization  of  the  animal  form,  and  all 
its  instincts  and  life,  are  also  the  effects  of  the  spiritual 
element  from  the  Lord  working  from  within.  One  ani- 
mal cannot  create  another.  No  animal  can  form  its  own 
instincts.  I  repeat,  therefore,  that  the  creation  of  the 
material  universe,  as  a  whole  and  in  all  its  parts,  is  due 
to  the  spiritual  presence  and  agency  of  the  Divine  sphere 
of  the  Lord  through  the  spiritual  world.  The  spiritual 
world,  then,  in  its  relations  to  this,  is  the  world  of  causes, 
not  only  as  a  whole,  not  only  as  a  first  cause,  but  in  each 
particular  and  at  every  moment.  Wherever  you  see  a 
form  or  motion,  growth  or  change,  you  may  know  that 
there  are  spiritual  substances  and  forces  at  work,  just 
as  certainly  as  you  know  when  you  see  a  machine  in 
motion  that  some  power  is  moving  it. 

The  very  deadness  and  inertness  of  matter  fit  it  to 
serve  an  essential  use  in  the  Lord's  creation.  The  ma- 
terial world  forms  the  basis  on  which  the  spiritual  world 


THE  DIVIXE  METHOD  OF  CREATING. 


117 


rests,  and  from  which  it  reacts.  Creation  requires  a  pas- 
sive and  an  active.  There  must  be  something  to  act  and 
something  to  receive  the  action, — to  be  acted  upon.  We 
see  this  principle  clearly  in  exercise  in  this  world,  and 
the  Lord  always  works  like  Himself  in  all  parts  of  His 
creation.  The  earth  was  first  created  from  the  sun,  and 
now  the  sun  acts  into  it  and  sets  all  its  forms  in  motion. 
It  acts  upon  the  atmosphere  and  causes  all  its  currents 
and  winds.  It  acts  upon  the  water  and  lifts  it  from  the 
ocean  and  the  land  into  the  heavens,  in  the  form  of 
clouds,  which  descend  in  rain  and  form  rivers,  and  thus 
the  element  of  water  is  kept  in  perpetual  play.  It  acts 
upon  all  vegetable  and  animal  forms,  and  keeps  them  in 
a  state  to  be  acted  upon  and  moulded  by  the  spiritual 
forces  which  reach  them  from  within.  If  there  were  no 
earth  the  sun's  rays  would  be  dissipated  in  space,  and, 
like  a  blow  upon  the  empty  air,  produce  no  effect.  The 
spiritual  world  is  the  real  and  substantial  world,  the  world 
of  causes  and  forms,  and  is  everywhere  present  and  op- 
erative ;  and  the  material  world  was  created  to  be  a  basis 
for  its  operations,  to  arrest  the  outflow  of  living  forces 
from  the  Lord,  and  reflect  them  back  towards  their  origi- 
nal fountain.  They  flow  from  Him  as  love  and  wisdom 
in  substance.  They  return  towards  Him  in  human  souls, 
organized  in  His  own  form  and  likeness,  and  capable  of 
receiving  His  love  and  wisdom  in  ever-increasing  fulness 
and  joy. 

The  truth  that  the  Lord  is  a'n  ever-living,  present,  and 
perpetual  Creator  is  one  that  men  are  very  slow  to  learn. 
Men  will  not  believe  that  the  Lord  is  now  doing  what  He 
has  always  done,  that  He  is  unchangeably  active.     "  My 


ii8      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


Father  worketh  hitherto,"  said  our  Lord,  "  and  I  work." 
This  truth  brings  the  Lord  near  to  us  as  a  present,  living 
God,  and  not  merely  an  historical  being.  The  whole  uni- 
verse is  the  effect  of  His  working  to-day,  is  made  up  of 
the  forms  which  His  love  and  wisdom  have  assumed  and 
do  assume  to-day  ;  and  they  are  as  truly  tokens  and  mes- 
sages of  His  love  as  the  work  which  any  man  does  is  an 
evidence  of  his  present,  living  power  and  of  his  wisdom 
and  skill.  It  is  the  Lord  who  feeds  the  blazing  furnace 
of  the  sun  by  emanations  from  Himself,  and  every  ray 
of  light  and  heat  that  falls  upon  our  world  comes  from 
the  Lord  through  the  sun,  and  is  a  message  of  the  Lord's 
love  and  wisdom.  It  is  the  Lord  who  creates  from  a 
living,  spiritual  sun  the  innumerable  hosts  of  stars  that 
gem  the  heavens  and  fill  the  immeasurable  space.  With 
this  truth  in  our  minds  we  look  up  to  the  sky  on  a  cloud- 
less night,  and  our  thoughts  do  not  travel  back  vast  ages 
to  admire  and  wonder  at  a  mighty  power  once  exerted, 
but  we  are  filled  with  amazement  and  awe  at  what  He  is 
now  doing.  The  stars  are  now  creating  and  created  from 
Him.  He  now  marshals  them  in  their  harmonious  order, 
and  sends  them  on  their  shining  way.  "See,"  says  the 
devout  soul,  "  what  my  Father  is  now  doing." 

As  he  looks  over  the  earth  in  the  spring  and  sees  the 
bare  trees  and  dead  mould  clothed  with  the  beautiful 
garment  of  organized  forms  ;  as  he  sees  the  beautiful 
flowers  bursting  from  the  cold  clod,  and  delicate  petals 
gently  unfolding  from  the'  hard,  woody  stems  until  the 
valleys  are  clothed  with  a  new  beauty,  and  the  hills  with 
a  new  glory,  "  See,"  he  says,  "  how  my  Father  works." 
It  is  His  hand  that  weaves  the  delicate  texture  of  leaf 


THE  DIVINE  METHOD  OF  CREATING.  119 

and  blossom.  It  is  His  hand  that  distils  the  farina  of 
wheat  and  the  sweet  juices  of  the  various  fruits,  and 
rounds  them  into  such  beautiful  and  graceful  forms,  and 
paints  them  with  such  delicate  and  various  hues.  It  is 
not  dead  nature  ;  it  is  not  primal  and  abstract  law  ;  it  is 
not  gas  or  electric  fires.  Matter  is  but  the  thin  veil  be- 
neath which  He  works.  Galvanic  forces  are  but  the 
swift  shuttles  with  which  He  weaves  the  web  of  organic 
forms.  The  falling  stream  falls  not  of  itself,  but  runs  and 
sings  in  sweet  accord  with  His  attractive  power.  The 
dewdrop  does  not  round  itself,  but  the  fine  particles  of 
mist  leap  and  cling  to  each  other's  embrace  by  His  will. 
The  bird  does  not  organize  itself,  or  sing  an  idle,  sense- 
less song.  It  sings  His  praises  in  a  voice  which  is  one 
chord  in  the  harmonies  of  His  nature. 

Look  up,  the  worlds  are  not  rushing  on  aimless  er- 
rands by  self-impelled  forces,  but  each  pursues  its  swift 
and  shining  way  by  certain  paths  for  certain  ends.  Look 
around  you,  the  whole  earth  is  tremulous  and  Hving  with 
His  all-pervading  presence.  He  speaks  to  you  in  the 
loving  voice  of  wife  and  child  ;  He  smiles  upon  you  in 
their  sweet  lips ;  He  ministers  to  you  in  their  gentle 
hands.  Look,  I  pray  you,  my  brother  ;  look  through 
the  thin  veil  of  nature  and  the  sweet  disguises  of  material 
forms  and  see  the  presence  and  power  of  your  Heavenly 
Father.  For  He  is  present  and  working  there.  From 
Himself,  by  instruments  formed  from  Himself,  He  now 
creates  all. 


MAN  A  FORM  RECEPTIVE  OF  LIFE. 


"  /  mil  the  vine,  ye  are  the  branches.  He  that  abideth  in  me, 
and  I  in  him,  the  same  bringeth  forth  much  fruit ;  for  without 
me  ye  can  do  nothing. — John  xv.  5. 

'T'HE  general  truth  contained  in  this  portion  of  the 


Divine  Word  is  this  :  that  man's  hfe  consists  in  his 
conjunction  with  the  Lord,  and  that  severed  from  Him 
he  is  nothing.  The  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  teach 
the  same  truth  when  they  declare  that  "  man  is  a  mere 
organ  of  life."  It  is  this  truth  to  which  I  wish  to  invite 
your  attention,  a  truth  fundamental  to  all  knowledge  of 
man's  own  nature  and  of  his  relations  to  the  Lord. 

Let  us  look  first  at  the  truth  itself.  ' '  Man  is  a  mere 
organ  of  life, "  or  as  it  is  expressed  in  other  words,  ' '  a  form 
receptive  of  life."  This  is  not  a  figurative  or  relative  ex- 
pression. Man  is  just  as  truly  a  mere  form  or  organ  of  life 
as  a  tree.  He  has  no  more  life  in  himself — that  is,  no  more 
life  that  has  its  origin  in  him — than  a  piece  of  granite  has. 
For  there  can  be  only  one  being  who  has  life  in  himself, 
— that  is,  underived  life,  — for  to  have  life  in  one's  self  is 
to  be  self-existent,  and  to  be  self-existent  is  to  be  un- 
created, and  to  be  uncreated  is  to  be  Divine,  to  be  God. 

All  men  who  acknowledge  a  God  assent  to  this  truth 
in  some  form.  But  still  it  is  generally  supposed  that 
man  is  endowed  with  certain  faculties  or  powers  and  then 
left  to  himself  in  some  measure  to  work  out  his  destiny, 
or  to  live  ;  and  thus  the  idea  is  entertained  that  man  has 


120 


MAN  A  FORM  RECEPTIVE  OF  LIFE. 


121 


independent  and  self-acting  power,  though  in  the  begin- 
ning he  was  created.  The  Creator  gave  him  a  start,  as  it 
were,  made  him  to  be  seif-existent,  and  then  left  him  to 
himself  so  far  as  mere  living  is  concerned,  and  only 
teaches  him  from  without,  as  we  teach  one  another,  how 
to  live.  Most  men  who  think  at  all  upon  the  subject 
doubtless  suppose  that  the  Lord  made  man  somewhat  as 
a  man  forms  a  machine,  with  the  difference  that  man  is  a 
self-acting  machine,  and  when  once  created  they  suppose 
that  he  goes  on  perpetuating  himself  without  any  imme- 
diate, special  agency  of  the  Creator. 

The  practical  effect  of  this  doctrine  is  the  denial  of  the 
immediate  and  constant  agency  of  the  Lord  in  life.  We 
rarely,  if  ever,  think  of  the  origin  of  our  life,  and  re- 
member only  that  we  now  live  and  seem  to  live  of  our- 
selves. Now,  the  plain,  simple  truth  is  that  man  is  a 
mere  organ  of  life,  or  a  form  by  which  life  from  the  Lord 
is  manifested,  and  it  is  by  a  constant  action  of  the  Divine 
life  upon  or  through  this  form  that  man  has  any  life.  It 
is  the  Divine  influx  or  inflowing  that  gives  life  to  this 
form  that  we  call  man. 

So  far  as  our  observation  extends  we  know  that  this  is 
a  universal  law.  No  finite  thing  that  we  have  any  knowl- 
edge of  has  any  life  in  itself,  and  all  that  we  call  its  life  is 
a  constant  inflowing  into  it.  If  we  look  at  the  human 
body  we  shall  find  abundant  illustration  of  the  principle. 

The  human  eye  is  a  mere  organ  of  sight.  It  has  no 
light  in  itself  No  phenomena  appear  until  the  eye  is 
acted  upon,  until  it  is  set  in  motion  by  the  influx  of  the 
ether.  When  its  waves  flow  in,  this  organism  is  set  in 
motion,  and  the  result  is  sight.    When  they  cease,  sight 

F  II 


122      PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


ceases.  So  the  ear  is  a  mere  organ  or  form  of  hearing, 
and  is  adapted  in  every  respect  to  the  air.  When  the 
waves  of  the  air  flow  in,  the  organ  is  set  in  motion,  and 
the  effect  is  a  sound.  It  is  with  the  ear  just  as  it  is  with 
the  pipe  of  an  organ  ;  when  the  inflowing  wave  ceases, 
then  the  sound  ceases. 

The  same  is  true  of  taste  and  of  touch.  No  sensation 
is  excited  unless  sometliing  acts  upon  the  organ  formed 
for  that  sense  and  excites  it,  and  when  the  action  ceases 
the  sensation  ceases.  So  the  whole  human  body,  in 
every  part,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  within  and 
without,  is  made  up  of  mere  organs.  They  are  not  all 
organs  of  sensation.  The  brain  is  the  organ  of  thought, 
the  tongue  and  larynx  are  organs  of  speech,  the  heart  is 
an  organ  for  propelling  the  blood,  the  lungs  for  breathing, 
the  feet  and  legs  are  the  organs  of  locomotion.  Not  one 
of  them  has  the  least  life  in  itself,. or  acts  unless  it  is 
impelled  ;  when  the  motive  power  is  shut  off"  the  organ 
ceases  its  motion,  as  a  wheel  ceases  to  revolve  when  the 
propelling  foice  ceases  to  act. 

The  heart  does  seem  to  expand  and  contract  of  itself, 
but  we  know  that  it  does  not  ;  for  when  the  spirit  leaves 
the  body  the  heart  has  no  motion.  If  it  were  really  self- 
acting  it  would  keep  on.  The  human  body,  then,  is 
a  series  and  congeries  of  organs,  and  every  action, 
motion,  and  affection  that  we  can  predicate  of  it  is 
caused  by  some  force  flowing  into  these  forms  and  set- 
ting them  in  motion. 

This  law  or  mode  of  the  Divine  operation  is  universal, 
so  far  as  our  observation  extends.  Is  it  rational  to  sup- 
pose that  the  action  of  the  law  is  limited  by  man's  powers 


MAN  A  FORM  RECEPTIVE  OF  LTFE.  123 


of  observation?  Certainly  not.  As  far  as  observation 
extends,  it  teaches  us  that  the  Lord  never  contradicts 
Himself,  that  He  works  after  the  same  general  plan 
everywhere.  Reason,  then,  may  take  up  the  thread 
when  observation  can  go  no  further,  and  show  by  the 
laws  of  analogy  and  correspondence  how  the  Lord  works 
in  degrees  or  planes  of  the  mind  entirely  above  our  ob- 
servation. 

When  we  pass  from  the  study  of  man's  body  to  his 
spirit,  we  conclude  that  as  the  combination  of  material 
organs  compose  the  body  and  make  the  material  form  of 
man,  so,  as  to  his  spirit  also,  man  is  a  mere  organ  of  life, 
an  organ  composed  of  a  series  and  congeries  of  spiritual 
forms,  which  in  their  combination  make  up  the  human 
form.  There  is  no  more  life  in  itself  in  the  spirit  than 
there  is  in  the  body.  It  is  an  organ  receptive  of  life. 
There  is  a  spiritual  eye  and  a  spiritual  ear  and  heart  ; 
there  are  spiritual  lungs  and  hands  and  feet,  and  all  the 
other  organs,  internal  and  external,  that  make  up  the 
human  form,  and  they  are  composed  of  spiritual  sub- 
stances, and  are  as  perfectly  adapted  to  a  world  composed 
of  spiritual  substances  as  the  material  man  is  to  the 
material  world.  The  eye  is  set  in  motion  by  waves  of  a 
spiritual  ether,  the  ear  vibrates  to  a  spiritual  air,  the  lungs 
breathe  a  spiritual  atmosphere.  The  heart  propels  spir- 
itual blood.  When  the  natural  body  is  laid  aside,  the 
spiritual  senses  are  affected  by  contact  with  spiritual 
forms  ;  the  foot  treads  upon  a  spiritual  earth,  which  is 
composed  of  a  greater  variety  of  forms  than  the  material 
earth.  Men  live  in  spiritual  houses  and  wear  spiritual 
garments  and  engage  in  various  uses  suited  to  the  world 


124      FI^ OGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


they  are  in,  and  yet  that  whole  world  and  all  who  are  in 
it  are  mere  organs  of  life,  having  the  same  relations  to 
one  another  that  material  forms  have.  If  we  ascend  to 
the  highest  angel  we  shall  find  him  a  mere  organ  of  life, 
having  no  more  life  in  himself  than  a  string  or  pipe  of  a 
musical  instrument,  and  no  more  power  to  set  himself  in 
motion  or  to  live  from  himself. 

We  come  to  this  conclusion,  then,  that  the  whole  uni- 
verse of  angels,  spirits,  men,  animals,  vegetables,  and 
worlds  is  a  vast  complicated  organism,  having  no  life  in 
itself  in  any  of  its  parts  or  forms.  It  is  created  by  the 
Lord  to  be  the  organ  of  life  which  flows  into  it  from  Him, 
and  sustains  and  animates  it.  The  Lord  constantly 
creates  and  gives  ;  all  that  created  things  or  beings  can 
do  is  to  receive.  And  this  is  the  next  principle  which  I 
wish  to  notice.  The  measure  and  quality  of  the  life  we 
receive  depend  upon  our  capacity  or  ability  to  receive. 

This  is  also  a  universal  law.  The  Lord  is  omnipresent 
in  all  His  fulness,  but  He  can  only  be  received  according 
to  the  capacity  of  the  recipient  form.  This  diversity  of 
ability  is  illustrated  in  the  human  body  in  the  same 
manner  as  diversity  of  form.  The  vibrations  in  the  air 
that  produce  the  sensation  of  sound  are  just  as  much 
present  to  the  hand  and  eye  as  they  are  to  the  ear,  but 
they  are  received  and  pcrcei\-ed  only  by  the  ear  because 
that  is  the  only  organ  whose  form  is  adapted  to  the  pur- 
pose. The  modulations  of  the  ether  float  all  around  us 
and  fall  upon  us  from  every  direction,  but  the  ey€  only 
has  any  knowledge  of  them,  because  it  is  the  only  organ 
formed  to  receive  them.  All  the  causes  which  e.xcite  the 
sensations  of  sight,  smell,  taste,  and  hearing  may  be 


MAN  A  FORM  RECEPTIVE  OF  LIFE.  125 

present  to  the  hand  ;  all  their  undulations  may  fall  upon 
it,  but  it  does  not  discern  their  presence,  though  one  of 
the  most  wonderful  organs  in  the  body,  simply  because  it 
is  not  fitted  to  receive  them.  Place  a  person  destitute  of 
eyes  in  the  midst  of  a  beautiful  landscape.  The  flowing 
stream,  the  quiet  valley,  the  gently-rising  upland,  and 
the  varied  outlines  of  a  wide  sweep  of  hills,  diversified 
with  innumerable  forms  of  tree  and  rock  and  animal, 
canopied  by  the  blue  sky  or  the  ever-shifting  forms  and 
hues  of  the  clouds  lighted  up  by  the  glories  of  the  rising 
or  the  setting  sun, — all  this  infinite  variety  of  form  and 
color  and  beauty  is  a  blank  to  him,  though  the  causes 
which  should  reveal  its  presence,  the  undulations  in  the 
ether  reflected  from  them,  fall  upon  him  from  every 
point.  The  only  want  is  in  him.  He  has  no  organs  to 
receive  these  motions,  and  consequently  they  are  to  him 
as  though  they  were  not.  What  is  true  of  the  eye  is 
true  of  the  ear  and  of  every  material  organ.  All  ma- 
terial organs  are  made  and  adapted  to  be  acted  upon  by 
material  agents,  and  the  manifestations,  effects,  or  phe- 
nomena are  in  exact  accordance  with  the  power  and 
degree  of  reception.  The  higher  the  form  of  the  organ, 
the  nobler  its  functions,  the  more  excellent  the  forces  of 
life  which  it  receives  and  to  which  it  responds. 

If,  now,  we  ascend  to  the  spiritual  forms,  we  shall  find 
the  same  general  law,  only  varied  in  its  effects  with  the 
capacity  of  the  form.  The  Lord  is  present  to  every 
man's  spirit  with  all  His  love  and  wisdom,  but  He  can 
communicate  only  what  can  be  received,  and  what  can  be 
received  depends  upon  the  quality  of  the  organ.  The 
phenomena  or  the  resulting  eflfects  of  influx  into  the 

II* 


126      PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


spiritual  organs  which  compose  the  man  are  thoughts 
and  affections.  Thoughts  and  affections  are  changes  of 
state  and  activities  of  spiritual  forms,  just  as  sound  and 
light  are  the  effects  of  the  air  and  ether  falling  upon  and 
setting  in  motion  the  organs  of  the  ear  and  eye.  And 
the  thought  and  affection  are  exactly  according  to  the 
measure  of  reception. 

We  should  rationally  expect  that  forms  composed  of 
substances  so  eminent  in  excellence  would  be  susceptible 
of  corresponding  effects,  and  we  find  it  is  so.  Our  ob- 
servation also,  as  far  as  it  extends,  teaches  us  that  the 
higher  the  form  and  medium,  the  more  varied  and  noble 
the  results.  The  rock  receives  only  sufficient  influx, 
which  we  call  attraction,  to  hold  its  particles  together. 
It  is  a  mere  mass.  In  the  vegetable  world  we  first  find 
organized  forms,  but  each  form  is  fixed  to  one  spot.  It 
has  growth  within  certain  limits,  but  no  sensation.  The 
animal  kingdom  possesses  locomotion  and  sensation,  and 
it  possesses  them  by  virtue  of  its  higher  organization. 
Man  possesses  all  these,  and  within  and  above  them  a 
spiritual  and  celestial  organism,  and  it  is  these  highest 
forms  which  really  constitute  his  humanity  and  elevate 
him  above  the  animal. 

The  pre-eminent  quality  of  a  spiritual  form  is  that  it  is 
not  subject  to  the  laws  of  fixed  time  and  space.  Organs 
formed  of  matter  grow  chiefly  by  increase  in  size.  But 
a  spiritual  form  grows  by  perfecting  its  state.  Spiritual 
forms  are  as  clearly  defined  and  distinct  from  one  another 
as  material,  and  appear  to  be,  and  are  in  one  sense,  in 
space,  as  much  as  material  forms  ;  but  the  spaces  are  not 
fixed  and  independent  of  the  mind,  but  conform  to  it. 


MA  AT  A  FORM  RECEPTIVE  OF  LIFE.  127 

From  this  quality  of  spirit  it  will  be  readily  seen  that 
there  are  no  limits  to  its  growth.  A  spiritual  form  may 
increase  in  the  quality  of  its  state  to  eternity, — that  is, 
without  any  limitations  as  to  time  and  space.  Nor  can 
it  be  destroyed  or  dissipated  as  a  material  form  can, 
which  can  communicate  itself  only  by  giving  away  a  part 
of  itself.  A  sum  of  money,  a  piece  of  land,  or  a  body 
of  water  is  diminished  by  whatever  is  removed  from  it. 
But  with  the  spiritual  forms  it  is  not  so.  It  matters  not 
how  often  a  thought  or  affection  is  communicated  to 
another,  it  still  remains  in  the  mind,  and  has  even  been 
increased  by  the  efforts  to  communicate  it.  Thus  it  can 
be  readily  seen  that  it  is  impossible  to  dissolve  and  dis- 
perse a  spiritual  form.  Spiritual  death  is  not  the  disso- 
lution of  the  soul,  its  ceasing  to  exist  as  a  form,  but  its 
malformation,  its  disorderly  action. 

Another  peculiar  and  prominent  quality  of  the  spiritual 
forms  which  constitute  the  human  mind  is,  that  they 
retain  every  motion  that  is  communicated  to  them.  This 
quality,  with  the  power  of  reproducing  every  motion  and 
change  of  state  which  has  ever  been  excited  in  the  mind, 
we  call  memory.  Thus  all  our  states  return,  and  may 
return  to  eternity,  though  modified  by  all  succeeding 
states. 

Another  quality  peculiar  to  the  most  perfect  spiritual 
forms  is  that  their  activities  are  attended  with  conscious- 
ness. We  know  that  we  love  and  think.  The  rock  does 
not  know  that  it  exists,  the  tree  does  not  know  that  it 
grows,  nor  has  the  animal  any  power  to  reflect  upon  the 
fact  of  its  existence. 

Another  quality  of  the  highest  human  faculties  is  that 


128      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


they  act  in  freedom.  Their  freedom  is  just  as  much  a 
gift  of  the  Lord  as  the  power  of  motion  or  thought,  or 
any  other  power.  We  can  act  as  of  ourselves.  While 
it  is  true  that  all  life  comes  from  the  Lord,  it  so  comes 
that  we  do  not  perceive  its  influx.  Our  first  intimation 
of  it  is  in  its  effect  upon  ourselves.  Thus  we  seem  to 
live  of  ourselves.  This  is  of  the  Lord's  love,  that  man 
might  not  be  a  mere  machine,  but  a  free  and  intelligent 
agent.  Thus  man  has  the  power  constantly  given  to  him 
to  receive  or  to  reject  the  Lord's  influx  into  him.  He 
can  turn  himself  away  from  Him,  or  he  can  turn  himself 
towards  Him.    He  can  live  in  order  or  disorder. 

Man's  spiritual  form  is  constantly  perfected  by  right 
action  and  injured  by  wrong  action.  It  is  at  first  a  mere 
possibility,  but  constantly  unfolds  and  develops  by  use. 
And  it  develops  in  two  ways  ;  each  organ  becomes  more 
perfect,  and  new  degrees  of  life  or  higher  spiritual  forms 
are  constantly  coming  forward.  Every  new  truth  re- 
ceived into  the  mind,  and  woven  into  its  tissues  by  the 
afiections,  becomes  a  new  organ  for  the  reception  of  a 
larger  measure  of  the  Divine  life.  And  every  heavenly 
affection  of  charity  to  the  neighbor  or  love  to  the  Lord 
is,  in  itself  considered,  an  harmonious  modulation  of  the 
whole  spiritual  form,  and  has  a  permanent  effect.  It 
tends  to  induce  a  state  of  such  orderly  and  heavenly  ac- 
tion that  the  form  is  more  easily  set  in  motion  in  the 
same  way  again.  In  time  a  habit,  as  we  term  it,  is 
formed, — that  is,  the  form  takes  on  these  motions  spon- 
taneously without  any  effort  of  the  will,  whenever  the  ex- 
isting cause  is  present,  as  the  Aeolian  harp  rises  and  falls 
in  harmonious  chords  when  the  wind  breathes  upon  it. 


MAN  A  FORM  RECEPTIVE  OF  LIFE.  129 

The  highest  attainable  perfection,  then,  of  any  created 
being,  is  this  abihty  to  receive  the  Divine  life  in  the 
largest  measures  and  highest  forms.  To  be  a  recipient 
of  the  Divine  love  and  wisdom  is  the  very  end  for  which 
man  was  created.  The  Lord  made  him  in  His  image 
and  likeness,  that  he  might  be  a  form  in  every  respect 
adapted  to  the  reception  of  life  from  Him.  Man  is  a 
mere  organ,  but  an  organ  after  a  Divine  pattern.  All 
that  the  Lord  asks  of  man  is  to  receive  Him  and  to  enjoy 
the  blessedness  of  conjunction  with  Him. 

This  is  a  great  practical  truth  of  paramount  importance 
to  every  created  being.  Let  us  state  it  clearly.  ' '  Man 
is  a  mere  organ  of  life. ' '  He  is  a  combination  of  forms 
connected  together  in  series  and  degrees,  one  within  an- 
other, and  all  so  related,  though  indefinite  in  number 
and  degree,  that  they  form  a  one,  which  in  the  complex 
we  call  man.  All  the  phenomena  of  life,  all  affection, 
thought,  sensation,  all  that  we  perceive  as  pleasure  or 
pain,  every  possible  quality  that  we  can  predicate  of  man, 
is  caused  by  influx  into  this  wonderful  combination  of 
forms.  The  influx,  with  its  effect  and  manifestation,  is 
always  determined  by  the  form,  as  the  quality  of  a  mu- 
sical sound  is  determined,  other  things  being  equal,  by 
the  nature  and  quality  of  the  instrument. 

The  Lord  is  present  to  every  created  being  and  to 
every  created  thing  with  all  His  love  and  wisdom,  to  the 
highest  angel  in  heaven  and  to  the  lowest  devil  in  hell, 
to  the  wisest  sage  upon  earth  and  to  the  infant  just  born, 
to  every  animal  and  tree  and  rock  ;  but  each  one  can  re- 
ceive only  that  which  its  form  adapts  it  to  receive. 

The  Lord  is  present  to  each  one  of  us  now,  but  we  see 


130      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

Him  not,  because  we  do  not  receive  Him.  We  should 
not  any  of  us  need  to  move  from  our  places  to  see  the 
ineffable  splendors  of  the  celestial  heaven  and  groups  of 
angels  of  a  loveliness  and  beauty  beyond  our  conception, 
and  to  hear  harmonies  such  as  never  fell  upon  mortal 
ear,  if  we  had  the  organs  to  receive  such  a  revelation. 
We  stand  in  the  universe  like  a  statue  in  a  garden.  The 
sun  pours  his  mid-day  splendors,  his  rising  and  his  set- 
ting glories,  upon  it  ;  those  motions  in  the  ether  which 
would  communicate  to  the  living  eye  the  forms  and  colors 
of  all  surrounding  objects  fall  upon  the  stony  eyeball ;  the 
fragrance  of  a  thousand  flowers  is  wafted  on  every  breeze, 
and  the  minstrelsy  of  a  thousand  winds  plays  around  the 
well-cut  ear,  but  it  stands  with  dead  and  stony  gaze 
through  summer's  heat  and  winter's  cold,  unmoved  by 
the  beauty  of  spring  or  the  golden  wealth  of  autumn. 
Why  ?  Because  it  has  no  organism  within  to  receive  and 
be  played  upon  by  these  manifold  forces.  So  we  stand 
in  the  midst  of  the  spiritual  world  because  we  deny  our 
higher  life.  We  turn  away  from  the  Lord  and  refuse  to 
receive  Him.  He  stands  at  the  door  and  knocks  ;  He 
presses  upon  every  avenue  as  the  air  presses  upon  us. 
Byt  we  can  only  receive  what  we  have  the  organs  to 
receive. 

There  are  in  every  human  soul  the  possibilities  of  only 
less  than  infinite  power  and  blessedness,  but  they  remain 
mere  possibihties,  like  the  germ  of  a  seed  before  it  begins 
to  grow,  because  we  do  not  suffer  life  from  the  Lord  to 
flow  into  them  and  bring  them  out  into  definite  form  and 
fill  them  with  the  activities  of  His  own  love.  By  our 
evils  and  falses  we  bar  every  access  of  the  Lord  to  our 


MAN  A  FORM  RECEPTIVE  OF  LIFE.  131 

souls,  over  which  we  have  control,  and  by  the  perversion 
of  our  spiritual  forms  we  change  all  that  does  flow  in, 
from  the  perfect  order,  beauty,  and  harmony  of  heaven 
into  infernal  ugliness  and  grating  discords.  We  suffer 
the  cursed  dust  of  mere  earthly  loves  to  settle  down  upon 
the  fine  but  unused  tissues  of  the  higher  faculties  within 
us,  and  the  damp  mould  of  earthly  passions  to  gather 
upon  them,  or  the  scorching  fires  of  selfish  and  worldly 
loves  to  sear  and  wither  their  fair  forms.  We  are  dwarfs 
in  spiritual  stature,  and  our  life  is  poor  and  mean,  because 
we  will  not  admit  the  Divine  love  and  wisdom  into  our 
souls.  We  are  like  the  stunted  shrubs  of  arctic  climes 
because  we  turn  away  from  the  sun  of  heaven. 

How  poor  and  disjointed  and  lean  is  even  the  best  life 
compared  with  what  it  might  be,  and  would  be  if  we  would 
receive  what  the  Lord  wishes  and  strives  to  give  us  1 
Here  we  stand  in  the  midst  of  the  infinite  :  organs  of  life 
after  the  image  and  likeness  of  the  infinite.  The  Lord 
calls  to  us  in  every  conceivable  form,  "Ho,  every  one 
that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters,  .  .  .  yea,  come, 
buy  wine  and  milk  without  money  and  without  price." 
But  we  heed  it  not.  The  sweet,  heavenly  melody  of  His 
voice  is  swallowed  up  and  lost  amid  the  din  and  roar  and 
harsh  discords  of  worldly  life.  We  are  hurrying  to  and 
fro  to  get  something  to  satisfy  the  clamorous  appetites  of 
selfish  and  worldly  desires.  We  give  free  access  to  the 
influx  into  the  organs  of  sensual  and  natural  life,  and  they 
grow  strong  and  huge  and  many-handed,  grasping  and 
crushing  on  every  side,  while  the  angels,  who  come  to 
bring  us  heaven  and  eternal  life,  sit  alone,  unheeded  in  the 
dusty,  dwarfed,  and  desolate  upper  chambers  of  the  mind. 


132      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


The  Lord  has  created  us  forms  receptive  of  Hfe, — of 
His  Hfe.  He  has  so  made  us  that  we  are  free  to  receive 
it  in  true  order  or  not.  We  can  receive  it  into  the 
lower  or  the  higher  forms  of  our  mind.  He  offers  us 
the  highest  good  and  the  lowest.  We  can  receive  either 
only  by  becoming  its  form.  The  question  for  every  man 
and  every  woman  to  determine  is  this,  and  it  is  of  all 
questions  the  most  important  :  What  kind  of  a  form  shall 
I  become  ?  What  shall  I  be  ?  It  is  not  a  question  of 
words,  but  of  life.  Here  is  the  life  of  infinite  love  and 
wisdom,  freely  offering  itself  to  become  formed  and  ulti- 
mated  in  me.  Shall  I  admit  it  only  in  inverted  order 
into  the  lowest  forms  of  my  mind,  the  natural  plane  of 
life  ?  If  I  do,  I  shut  it  out  from  all  above,  and  the  high- 
est, noblest,  most  capacious  and  fruitful  portion  of  my 
spiritual  organism  is  severed  from  the  Lord  and  becomes 
a  withered  branch.  And  all  that  is  received  is  inverted. 
It  is  changed  from  life  to  death.  The  loves  of  self  and 
the  world  reign,  mad  passions  rage.  The  mind  becomes 
a  cage  of  unclean  birds,  of  pride  and  envy  and  malice 
and  low  cunning  and  the  greed  of  gain,  ambition,  cruelty, 
malevolence,  and  a  fruitful  swarm  of  low,  vile,  sensual 
delights,  which  bite  and  sting  and  poison  in  the  end. 
All  its  motions  will  be  discords.  All  its  activities  will 
clash  and  war  with  one  another.  All  its  truths  will  be 
lies,  all  its  loves  evils.  It  will  be  to  the  spiritual  sun 
what  the  deadly  nightshade  is  to  the  natural  sun,  turning 
all  its  pure  light  and  heat  into  poison.  Who  wishes  to 
become  such  an  alembic,  to  distil  infernal  poison  out  of 
the  sweet  and  fragrant  blossoms  of  heaven  ?  Doubtless 
there  would  be  a  prompt  and  unanimous  denial  in  words 


MAN  A  FORM  RECEPTIVE  OF  LIFE.  133 


of  any  such  wish.  But  what  says  that  higher  and  truer 
voice,  the  Hfe  ?  What  did  you  do  when  you  spolce  evil 
of  your  neighbor  ?  when  you  forgot  his  interests  in  your 
eagerness  to  secure  your  own  ?  when  you  coveted  his 
goods  or  his  place,  or  when  you  were  puffed  up  with 
self-conceit,  or  elated  with  pride  at  some  possession  ? 
What  answer  did  you  give  when  you  let  the  serpent  of 
any  sensual  love  breathe  lies  into  your  ear  ?  No  evil  can 
come  into  the  mind  and  be  loved  unless  the  mind  is  itself 
the  form  of  that  evil.    What  we  receive  and  love  we  are. 

If  we  receive  the  Divine  life  into  the  highest  forms  of 
our  mind,  into  the  will,  the  love,  it  will  flow  down  into 
all  the  lower  forms  of  the  mind  in  order  and  harmony. 
It  will  enlighten  the  understanding  with  truth,  it  will  flow 
down  through  all  the  affections,  and  out  in  every  act, 
transforming  everything  into  its  own  likeness.  We  shall 
be  filled  with  the  fulness  of  love.  There  will  be  love  to 
the  Lord  and  to  the  neighbor.  There  will  be  a  clear 
light  in  the  understanding,  and  a  sweet,  serene  peace 
will  flow  like  a  river  through  every  channel  of  the  soul. 
We  shall  be  formed  after  the  pattern  of  heaven.  Heaven 
will  be  within  us.  Every  form  will  grow  into  its  ineffable 
beauty.  The  soul  will  be  built  up  in  all  its  fair  propor- 
tions, and  every  fibre  of  every  form  will  be  tremulous 
with  its  harmonies.  The  Divine  love  and  wisdom  will 
flow  into  us  unimpeded.  We  shall  abide  in  the  Lord, 
and  He  in  us.  We  shall  be  conjoined  with  Him,  and 
He  will  withhold  from  us  no  good.  All  our  activities 
will  be  free,  because  they  will  flow  from  our  loves  ;  and 
the  life  of  to-day  will  be  but  the  bud  which  will  blos- 
som to-morrow  and  the  next  day  ripen  into  fruit.  And 

12 


134      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 

thus  we  may  go  on  to  eternity,  making  each  attainment 
and  each  measure  of  blessedness  the  starting-point  for  a 
nobler  height  and  a  fuller  measure  of  joy.  Is  it  not, 
then,  the  question  of  questions?  Should  we  not  propose 
it  to  ourselves  every  morning?  What  life  shall  flow 
through  me  to-day  ?  And  every  evening  should  we  not 
ask  ourselves  the  question.  Of  what  have  I  been  the  or- 
gan to-day  ? — life  or  death  ?  Stand  up  bravely  to  the 
question.  Let  it  echo  and  re-echo  through  everj-  cham- 
ber of  the  soul  ;  for  on  its  answer  will  depend  how  much 
life  you  will  receive,  and  what  will  be  the  quality  of  that 
life. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  WITHIN  YOU. 


'^Behold,  the  kingdom  of  God  is  wii/iin  you." — Luke  xvii.  21. 

IT  is  one  of  the  sad  consequences  of  man's  fallen,  de- 
generate state  that  he  looks  without  for  happiness 
rather  than  within.  He  looks  down  to  the  world  rather 
than  up  to  the  Lord  ;  to  things  rather  than  states.  He 
takes  the  lowest  form  of  good  as  his  standard,  and  meas- 
ures all  things  by  it.  The  material  world,  natural  life, 
earthly  possessions,  honors,  joys  are  the  balances  in 
which  he  weighs  all  that  he  calls  good.  Wealth,  wisdom, 
honor,  beauty,  power,  glory,  all  are  estimated  by  the 
standards  of  earth  and  sense.  And  man  himself,  the 
crowning  work  of  the  Lord,  with  faculties  of  measureless 
capacity,  is  valued  for  what  he  has  of  earthly  things 
rather  than  for  what  he  is. 

A  little  reflection  must  show  us  that  it  is  an  entirely 
false  estimate  which  is  formed  in  this  way.  The  lower 
can  never  be  a  measure  for  the  higher.  Light,  heat, 
magnetism  cannot  be  measured  by  the  cubic  foot  or 
valued  in  dollars  and  cents.  The  body  is  no  measure 
for  the  soul.  A  heavenly,  eternal  good  cannot  be  esti- 
mated or  expressed  in  the  terms  of  any  earthly  good. 
"What  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  shall  gain  the  whole 
world,  and  lose  his  own  soul  ?  Or  what  shall  a  man  give 
in  exchange  for  his  soul  ?' '  The  most  of  the  stars  are  so 
remote  from  the  earth  that  their  distance  cannot  be  meas- 
ured.    The  diameter  of  the  earth's  orbit  is  not  great 

135 


136      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


enough  to  produce  any  apparent  change  in  their  position. 
So  no  earthly  good,  no  wealth,  no  wisdom,  no  honor  or 
power  embraces  within  its  orbit  any  dimensions  or  any- 
thing so  precious  that  its  value  has  any  ratio  to  a  heavenly 
good.  The  least  spiritual  good  divided  by  the  earth 
itself  and  all  that  encircles  it  would,  in  its  final  analysis, 
be  reduced  to  the  mathematical  formula  of  one  divided 
by  zero. 

Not  that  the  things  of  this  world  are  valueless.  This 
world  is  the  kingdom  of  the  body  and  the  senses,  and  a 
beautiful  and  glorious  kingdom  it  is.  When  subordinate 
to  the  kingdom  of  God  and  an  instrument  of  its  service, 
it  is  of  inestimable  value.  It  becomes  of  no  value,  or 
worse  than  valueless,  when  it  is  placed  in  competition 
with  heavenly  good  and  is  destructive  of  it.  All  ma- 
terial things,  all  worldly  possessions  and  natural  delights, 
are  given  for  the  soul,  and  not  to  take  its  place,  and  their 
value  is  always  measured  by  the  use  they  serve  for  man's 
spiritual  needs.  The  body  was  made  for  the  soul  and 
the  earth  for  the  body,  and,  through  that,  for  the  soul 
also.  Thus  the  world  is  only  a  remote  province  of  the 
soul.  Every  lower  degree  of  life  was  formed  to  serve  a 
higher,  and  all  degrees  of  life  were  made  to  be  the  re- 
cipients of  life  from  the  Lord  and  to  act  in  harmony  with 
Him.  The  higher  the  degree,  the  nobler  the  faculty  and 
the  more  blessed  its  activities.  The  higher  the  degree, 
the  nearer  we  approach  the  Divine.  The  Lord  seeks  to 
communicate  all  of  His  own  to  man,  and  man's  true  glory 
and  happiness  consists  in  his  reception  of  the  Lord's 
gifts.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  within  us,  and  if  we 
would  enter  into  that  kingdom  and  take  possession  of  its 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  WITHIN  YOU.  137 

immeasurable  good,  we  must  permit  the  Lord  to  form  it 
within  us,  and  co-operate  with  Him  in  doing  so. 

I  propose,  then,  to  consider  specifically  what  constitutes 
the  kingdom  of  God,  and  to  show  how  it  is  within  us. 
And,  first,  that  part  of  the  kingdom  of  God  which  is  in 
man's  physical  body. 

The  eye  is  the  kingdom  of  light.  For  there  is  a  sub- 
tile ether  pervading  the  material  universe,  and  the  eye  is 
a  form  organized  to  receive  it  and  act  in  harmony  with 
it.  All  the  motions  and  qualities  of  the  ether,  all  colors 
and  shadows,  in  their  infinite  variety,  and  all  forms  dwell 
in  the  eye.  The  kingdom  of  color,  of  light,  of  form 
dwells  in  it. 

The  kingdom  of  sound,  of  harmony,  is  in  the  ear.  It 
is  a  kingdom  small  in  size,  but  wonderful  in  capacity. 
What  harmonies  dwell  in  it  !  It  takes  up  and  repeats 
the  modulations  made  by  all  instruments,  by  all  human 
voices  and  all  material  things,  from  the  faintest  whisper 
to  the  loudest  thunder,  through  every  shade  of  modula- 
tion and  combination.  Each  of  the  other  senses  is  a 
kingdom  within  itself,  embracing  everything  relating  to  it. 

I  have  alluded  to  this  relation  of  the  senses  to  the  ma- 
terial world  as  illustrating  how  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
within  us,  for  the  analogy  between  the  soul  and  body  is 
perfect.  The  spirit  is  the  kingdom  of  all  affection  and 
thought,  with  their  delights,  in  the  same  way  that  the  eye 
is  the  kingdom  of  light  and  the  ear  of  sound.  But  spir- 
itual forms  are  more  exalted  and  excellent  in  all  their 
qualities  than  material  forms.  They  are  susceptible  of  an 
indefinitely  greater  variety  of  changes,  and  of  a  continually 
increasing  development.    They  are  formed  to  receive 

12* 


138      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


life  from  the  Lord  in  higher  and  more  perfect  degrees, 
and  hence  to  be  the  subject  of  more  exalted  delights, — to 
be  indeed  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  He  rules,  which 
He  beautifies  with  all  heavenly  loveliness,  which  He  fills 
with  all  heavenly  delights,  and  in  which  He  sets  up  His 
throne,  the  theatre  on  which  He  displays  His  glory,  and 
the  home  in  which  He  dwells. 

To  a  partial  view  the  human  soul  may  seem  to  be  too 
contracted  a  kingdom  for  the  display  of  omnipotent  power 
and  the  diversified  operations  of  infinite  wisdom,  and  too 
small  in  capacity  to  satisfy  the  desires  of  infinite  love.  It 
has  indeed  no  size  that  can  be  measured  by  natural 
standards,  and  yet  the  material  universe  is  not  large 
enough  to  contain  it  or  satisfy  it.  When  measured  by 
the  highest  standard,  the  human  soul  is  the  largest  and 
the  most  capacious  and  varied  receptacle  of  the  Di\  ine 
life  of  any  created  form.  We  shall  find  it  so  even  if  we 
limit  its  development  to  this  life.  To  gain  some  idea  of 
its  capacity  we  have  only  to  consider  for  a  moment  how 
vast  and  varied  are  the  contents  of  any  well-filled  and 
highly-cultivated  mind.  In  some  minds  the  whole  his- 
tory of  humanitv,  so  far  as  it  has  been  recorded  and  can 
be  known,  is  written  in  clear  and  living  characters  ;  the 
lives  of  individual  men,  the  rise  and  fall  of  nations,  the 
battles,  the  heroism,  the  civilization,  the  struggles  of 
truth  with  error,  the  hopes,  the  successes,  and  the  de- 
spair. The  vast  evolutions  of  humanity  gradually  un- 
folding from  age  to  age,  and  the  little  incidents,  the 
trifles  light  as  air,  of  the  passing  hour,  all,  in  every 
variety  of  form  and  relation,  can  be  embraced  within  the 
compass  of  human  thought.    If  life  were  long  enough, 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  WITH IX  VOL'.  139 

and  the  conditions  of  space  would  permit,  every  fact, 
every  motion,  every  deed  that  has  occurred  upon  this 
globe  might  be  treasured  up  in  the  human  mind. 

If  it  were  possible  to  construct  a  panorama  of  every 
physical  change  that  has  taken  place  on  our  earth  from 
its  first  emergence  from  chaos  until  the  present,  or  any 
future  time ;  the  slow  formation  of  its  rocky  crust 
through  ages  of  ages,  its  upheaval  into  mountains  and 
subsidence  into  valleys,  the  everlasting  battle  between 
the  ocean  and  the  rock,  the  formation  of  strata  by  mil- 
lions of  years  of  unending  strife,  the  silent,  slow  but  sure 
growth  of  continents  from  the  life  and  death  of  coral  and 
microscopic  insects,  the  sprouting  of  the  first  blade  of 
grass,  the  blossoming  of  every  flower  through  all  the 
floral  and  arborescent  generations  until  the  present  time, 
the  creation  of  the  first  insect  and  animal  and  all  the 
swarms  of  ephemera  and  all  the  birds  that  have  ever 
carolled  and  spread  their  wings  in  the  air,  and  all  the 
beasts  that  have  lived  and  died  upon  the  earth, — if  the 
whole  history  of  the  animal,  vegetable,  and  mineral  king- 
doms, in  every  isolated  fact,  in  every  particular  form,  and 
in  all  their  relations  and  combinations,  could  be  made  to 
pass  before  the  mind,  they  could  all  be  retained  and  com- 
prised in  one  memory.  And  when  this  picture,  with  its 
almost  infinite  details,  had  been  transferred  to  the  canvas 
of  the  memory,  you  might  begin  again,  and  on  the  same 
canvas  photograph  the  history  of  humanity  in  all  its 
.  movements,  embracing  the  lives  of  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  that  has  ever  lived,  in  all  their  actions  and  re- 
lations to  one  another,  the  life  of  nations  and  the  gradual 
changes  of  centuries,  and  not  a  line  or  shadow  in  this 


I40      PROGRESS  /.V  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


picture  would  interfere  with  the  other,  but  all  would  be- 
come more  distinct  from  the  presence  of  each.  When 
you  stand  upon  an  eminence  and  cast  your  eye  over  a 
wide  expanse  of  earth,  everything  within  the  circuit  of 
your  vision  is  clearly  pictured  upon  it,  every  mountain 
and  hill,  valley  and  stream,  city  and  dwelling  ;  all  things 
even  to  the  down  upon  the  blossom  and  the  mote 
in  the  sunbeam,  with  their  shadows,  colors,  and  forms, 
are  distinctly  delineated.  Could  you  see  a  thousand 
landscapes,  one  after  the  other,  and  then  look  up  and 
sweep  the  circuit  of  the  heavens,  one  picture  would  not 
interfere  with  another  ;  one  would  not  obliterate  the 
other.  You  might  shut  your  eyes  and  see  them  all. 
Hour  after  hour,  during  our  whole  life,  myriads  of 
forms  are  drawn  upon  the  retina  of  the  eye,  and  yet  no 
one  interferes  with  another.  Such  is  the  perfection  of  a 
material  form  !  What,  then,  must  be  the  capacity  and 
perfection  of  a  spiritual  form  to  recei\  e  and  to  retain  ? 
No  impression  ever  made  upon  the  memory  is  lost.  We 
never  forget.  We  may  not  be  able  to  recall,  but  what 
we  know  once  we  know  forever. 

But  the  mind  is  not  only  capacious  to  receive  and  tena- 
cious to  retain  ;  it  is  not  merely  a  kingdom  of  dead 
facts  and  forms  ;  it  has  also  the  mar\  ellous  jjovver  of  re- 
arranging and  combining  them,  and  of  creating  out  of 
them  an  ideal  world,  and  peopling  it  with  ideal  forms  of 
surpassing  loveliness  and  beauty.  The  facts  of  history 
and  science  are  to  the  mind  what  air  and  water  and  earth 
are  to  that  invisible  and  plastic  power  that  decomposes 
and  reconstructs  them  into  the  various  beautiful  forms  of 
vegetable  and  animal  life.    It  is  perpetually  rearranging 


THE  k'lXGDOM  OF  GOD  WITIIIX  YOL'.  141 

and  recreating  objects  and  living  forms,  with  which  it 
enlarges  and  adorns  its  kingdom.  From  facts  it  elimi- 
nates knowledge  and  thoughts  of  a  higher  form,  and 
from  these  again  it  deduces  principles  of  more  general 
application. 

And  these  principles  and  lofty  ideals  the  mind  can  re- 
embody  in  material  forms.  The  artist  first  stores  his 
mind  with  a  multitude  of  beautiful  forms,  and  from  these 
extracts  their  essential  beauties  and  recombines  them  in 
a  perfect  whole,  or  rather  in  a  multitude  of  ideals,  which 
have  no  bodily  realization  upon  earth.  All  that  poets 
and  artists  have  expressed  existed  first  in  their  own  minds. 
The  noble  form  was  in  the  mind  of  the  sculptor  before  he 
could  see  it  in  the  marble.  The  marble  was  only  the 
mirror  in  which  he  saw  the  child  of  his  own  fancy  re- 
flected. The  imagination  first  paints  the  picture  upon 
its  own  canvas,  and  that  which  lives  and  glows  upon  the 
material  canvas  is  only  an  imperfect  copy  of  the  mental 
original.  The  vast  cathedrals  were  first  erected  in  the 
architect's  brain,  from  foundation  to  pinnacle,  and  the 
beautiful  creations  which  poets  have  embodied  in  num- 
bers through  all  time  were  still  more  beautiful  as  they 
lay  in  fair  ideal  worlds  in  their  own  fancies.  All  that  they 
have  expressed,  much  and  wonderful  as  it  is,  is  only  the 
rude  sketch  of  what  dwelt  within  them.  What  beautiful 
worlds  compose  the  poet's  kingdom,  and  what  fair  women 
and  noble  men  dwell  in  them  !  But  who  ever  saw  on 
canvas  or  in  marble,  in  poem  or  in  song,  the  full  embodi- 
ment or  realization  of  his  ideal  ?  No,  the  kingdom  within 
is  larger  than  the  kingdom  without ;  profounder  oceans 
roll,  grander  mountains  rise  to  loftier  heights,  and  love- 


142      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


lier  valleys  lie  between.  Groves  and  gardens  and  gently 
swelling  hills  and  shining  rivers,  and  paradises  of  fruits 
and  flowers  that  have  no  antitype  and  can  have  no  em- 
bodiment on  earth  ;  cities  of  wide  streets  and  marble 
palaces  sparkling  with  diamonds  and  shining  with  gold  ; 
and  all  the  feir  world  peopled  with  beings  of  correspond- 
ing excellence,  innocent  and  lovely  women,  pure  and 
noble  men, — all  these  dwell  in  clusters  and  constellations 
in  the  kingdom  within.  And  there,  too,  exist  Utopian 
governments  whose  rulers  are  wise  men,  consulting  the 
public  rather  than  their  private  good,  and  whose  people 
are  obedient,  intelligent,  and  happy.  In  the  wide  and 
populous  realms  and  starry  heavens  of  the  mind  innu- 
merable sciences  and  systems  come  and  take  up  their 
permanent  abode  ;  arts  flourish,  kingdoms  rise,  people 
are  born  that  never  die.  And  yet  there  is  room.  Every 
thought  enlarges  the  boundary  of  this  kingdom  ;  every 
new  science  or  art  is  a  new  province.  The  more  you  put 
into  the  human  mind  the  more  it  is  able  to  receive.  Is 
it  not  a  kingdom  worthy  of  a  heavenly  King? 

But  I  have  yet  spoken  of  only  one  grand  division  of 
this  kingdom,  the  intellectual  and  rational.  There  is  an- 
other realm,  twin  to  this,  as  large  in  extent,  as  various 
and  beautiful  in  tlie  forms  that  compose  it,  and  that  is 
the  kingdom  of  the  will,  whose  provinces  are  affections, 
and  whose  immeasurable  riches  are  joys.  There  is  an 
affection  for  every  thought,  and  there  is  a  delight  for 
every  affection. 

These  kingdoms  run  parallel  with  each  other,  and 
everything  within  them  joins  hands.  They  are  halves 
of  one  whole.    The  heart  is  as  capacious  of  joy  as  the 


THE  KIXGDOM  OF  GOD  WITHIN  YOU. 


143 


head  of  truths.  Every  relation  which  the  soul  sustains 
to  the  outward  world,  to  thoughts  and  deeds,  was  in- 
tended to  be  a  highway  for  the  entrance  of  joys  into  the 
heart.  The  will  is  an  organ  of  countless  pipes  and  stops, 
and  every  act  was  intended  to  excite  some  affection  and 
produce  some  delight.  We  know  that  this  instrument  is 
now  sadly  out  of  tune,  and  it  often  produces  terrible  dis- 
cords ;  but  we  know  enough  of  its  nature  to  conclude 
that,  if  it  were  in  perfect  harmony,  there  could  be  no 
limit  to  the  variety  and  blessedness  of  the  delights  it  is 
capable  of  receiving.  How  many  quiet  and  peaceful  de- 
lights flow  into  the  heart  through  the  senses,  through 
our  daily  labors  and  casual  contacts  with  our  fellows  ! 
Who  can  enumerate  the  delights  of  social  life  ?  delights 
that  spring  up  as  flowers  by  the  dusty  way-side  of  traffic 
and  business  ;  the  familiar  greeting,  the  pleasant  smile, 
the  cheerful  look.  The  cheering  word  dropped  into  the 
soul  awakens  harmonies  that  linger  and  play  around  it 
through  the  day  of  toil  and  in  pleasant  memories  forever. 
How  manifold  the  joys  that  are  awakened  while  we  con- 
template the  beauty  with  which  the  Lord  has  invested 
the  whole  earth  ! 

But  what  are  all  these  compared  with  the  deeper  and 
purer  joys  which  are  awakened  by  the  relations  of  home  ! 
Home  !  There  is  no  other  sound  in  human  language  that 
awakens  so  many  chords  as  that.  Brother,  sister,  parent, 
child,  husband,  wife,  all  cluster  around  it,  and  the  human 
heart  has  chords  that  vibrate  in  wonderful  harmony  with 
every  one.  Who  can  enumerate  and  estimate  the  joys 
that  are  created  by  these  relations  ?  And  yet  the  human 
soul  can  contain  them  all.    If  every  thought  and  every 


144      FIWCKESS  IM  SPIKITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


act  were  an  instrument  of  myriad  strings,  and  every 
vibration  a  distinct  joy,  the  soul  could  receive  them  all. 
And  yet  there  would  be  room.  Every  delight  that  has 
blessed  a  human  heart  from  the  creation  of  man  could  be 
compressed  into  one  heart,  and  yet  there  would  be  room. 
One  of  the  fine  globules  of  water  that  float  about  as  mist 
contains  all  the  circles,  arcs,  and  dimensions  that  can  be 
found  in  all  spheres.  It  has  its  centre  and  circumference, 
its  diameter  and  poles,  its  radii  and  zones,  its  arcs  and 
curves,  as  complete  as  the  earth  or  the  sun  itself  So 
each  human  heart  has  in  it  the  capacity  for  the  joys  of 
all  human  hearts.  Oh,  the  inestimable  worth,  the  in- 
conceivable grandeur  of  the  human  soul  !  Though  en- 
closed in  the  compass  of  a  few  feet  of  flesh,  it  is  a  kingdom 
that  stretches  away  beyond  any  assignable  limit,  whose 
depths  are  fathomless  to  any  human  power,  and  whose 
heights  rise  above  the  conceptions  of  any  finite  intellect. 
He  who  rules  this  kingdom  alone  knows  how  vast  it  is 
in  its  extent,  how  boundless  in  its  capacities  for  joy. 

But  I  have  not  yet  spoken  of  the  higher  degrees  of 
this  kingdom.  I  have  referred  only  to  the  natural  degree 
of  the  mind,  the  most  remote  and  barren  province  of  this 
kingdom,  the  frigid  zone  of  the  soul.  The  kingdom  of 
God  is  a  spiritual  kingdom,  and  all  its  forms  and  delights 
are  so  far  exalted  above  natural  delights  that  human  lan- 
guage is  totally  inadequate  to  describe  them.  They  are 
therefore  called  ineffable  and  inconceivable.  If  the  hu- 
man soul  is  capable  of  so  many  thoughts  and  affections, 
with  their  attendant  delights,  in  the  natural  plane  of  life, 
how  immeasurable  must  be  its  capacities  in  the  .spiritual 
and  celestial  degrees  ! 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  WITHIN  YOU. 


The  human  soul  is  made  to  receive  hfe  in  three  degrees,  . 
each  one  rising  so  far  above  the  other  in  the  extent  of 
its  capacities  and  in  the  variety  and  perfection  of  its  at- 
tributes that  the  activities  and  dehghts  of  the  higher  can 
be  expressed  only  in  general  terms,  and  by  remote  analo- 
gies in  the  lower.  And  yet  there  is  not  a  joy  that  thrills 
the  inmost  life  of  an  angel  that  may  not  thrill  yours. 
We  have  sometimes  a  foretaste  of  these  joys  here  that 
comes  to  us  as  a  prophecy  and  hope  of  what  we  may  be. 
A  peace  glides  over  the  soul  and  fills  it  with  a  sweet  calm 
and  quiet  joy  ;  and  again  it  may  be  exalted  and  thrilled 
with  a  heavenly  delight.  But  it  is  a  delight  muffled  and 
deadened  by  the  weight  of  flesh.  It  is  rather  a  dream 
of  heaven  than  heaven  itself,  a  strain  of  harmony  floating 
down  to  us  from  its  remote  glories  rather  than  the  full 
chord  of  its  harmonies.  What,  then,  must  those  joys  be 
in  their  fulness  and  perfection  !  And  the  kingdom  of 
all  these  joys  is  within  you.  And  however  large  and 
varied,  however  exalted  and  incomprehensible,  it  is  ca- 
pable of  indefinite  extension.  This  is  the  kingdom  in 
which  the  Lord  dwells,  and  which  He  fills  to  its  fullest 
capacities  with  His  Divine  love  and  wisdom.  This  king- 
dom, I  repeat,  is  within  you.  Every  one  of  you  is  heir 
to  all  its  riches,  glory,  and  blessedness.  All  thought, 
all  affection,  all  delight  is  within  us,  and  we  have  and 
possess  only  what  we  can  receive.  However  destitute 
you  may  be  in  worldly  riches  and  honors,  the  kingdom 
of  God  is  within  you.  The  Lord  has  made  every  human 
being  in  His  own  image  and  likeness,  and  consequently 
capable  of  receiving  life  from  Him  in  every  possible  va- 
riety and  form.  What,  then,  can  compare  in  worth,  in 
Q      k  13 


146      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


greatness,  in  capacities  for  blessedness  with  the  human 
soul  ? 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  within  you.  Not  actually 
in  all,  nor  in  any  in  full  development  and  power  ;  but  it 
is  within  all  in  possibility,  as  the  harvest  is  in  the  grain 
of  wheat,  as  natural  affections  and  physical  powers  and 
natural  science  are  in  the  infant.  The  germs  of  all 
heavenly  joys  are  within  us  ;  the  possibilities  of  the  three 
heavens  lie  wrapped  up,  fold  within  fold,  in  our  spiritual 
forms,  and  only  await  development.  And  as  the  seed 
in  good  ground  is  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  substances 
specially  adapted  to  its  growth,  through  which  forces  are 
continually  flowing  into  it  and  moulding  its  possibilities 
into  actual  forms,  so  the  Lord  has  placed  the  soul  in  the 
midst  of  spheres,  relations,  and  forces  that  are  in  the 
continual  effort  to  call  all  its  fofms  into  actual  existence, 
to  create  the  heavens  and  the  earth  within  it.  All  the 
relations  of  the  soul  to  the  body,  and  through  that  to  the 
material  world  ;  all  the  relations  of  human  beings  to  one 
another,  which  grow  out  of  their  wants  and  pleasures, 
their  labors  and  rest  ;  all  social,  civil,  domestic,  and 
.spiritual  relations  were  specially  instituted  by  the  Lord 
to  be  instruments  in  forming  this  kingdom  within  us,  and 
mediums  of  filling  it  with  life  from  Him  ;  and  its  fitness 
to  accomplish  this  end  is  the  true  measure  of  value  for 
every  earthly  and  every  heavenly  thing. 

Let  us  not,  then,  count  ourselves  rich  and  happy,  so 
much  for  what  we  have  of  worldly  good  as  for  what  we 
are  and  mav  obtain  of  heavenly  good.  Let  us  look  to 
the  kingdom  within  us  as  our  real  and  only  invaluable 
and  imperishable  possession. 


HUMAN  BEAUTY :  ITS  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  AND 
THE  MEANS  OF  ACQUIRING  IT. 


^'^  Strength  and  beauty  are  in  his  sanctuary. — Psalm  xcvi.  6. 

O  TRENGTH  and  beauty  are  the  two  essential  elements 
^  of  a  noble  manhood  and  of  a  beautiful  womanhood. 
They  are  combined  in  man  and  woman  in  different  pro- 
portions. Man  has  more  of  strength,  woman  more  of 
beauty.  But  all  true  manhood  has  its  beauty,  and  all 
genuine  womanhood  its  strength.  Rough,  naked  strength 
has  no  comeliness,  and  weakness  no  beauty.  But  com- 
bined in  due  proportion  and  modified  by  each  other,  they 
become  the  charm  of  character  and  the  cause  of  that 
attraction  which  draws  human  beings  together  and  makes 
them  a  delight  to  each  other. 

These  two  primary  qualities  of  all  human  excellence, 
strength  and  beauty,  are  in  the  Lord's  sanctuary.  His 
sanctuary  is  in  man's  will  and  understanding,  and  deriva- 
tively in  his  affections  and  thoughts.  The  will  and  the 
understanding  are  the  grand  temple  in  which  the  Lord 
dwells  ;  the  affections  and  thoughts  the  chapels  of  various 
form  and  use  in  which  the  precious  gifts  of  strength  and 
beauty  are  received  from  Him  and  appropriated  by  man. 

When  the  sanctuary  is  pure,  free  from  evil  lusts  and 
false  principles,  life  from  the  Lord  is  received  in  its  own 
perfect  forms,  in  all  its  purity,  sweetness,  and  harmony, 

147 


148      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


and  then  it  becomes  "the  beauty  of  holiness,"  in  which 
we  are  to  praise  and  worship  the  Lord.  This  beauty  of 
holiness  becomes  "the  dew  of  youth,"  an  influence 
which  gives  the  freshness,  the  innocence,  and  the  beauty 
of  youth  to  all  the  faculties  of  the  mind,  and  to  the  forms 
of  that  body  which  we  are  to  inhabit  forever.  Zion, 
which  is  called  by  the  Lord  Himself  "  the  perfection  of 
beauty, ' '  represents  in  general  the  same  principles  in  man 
as  "sanctuary."  Zion  is  man's  heart,  Jerusalem  his 
understanding  ;  and  it  is  this  Zion,  the  perfection  of 
beauty,  which  the  Lord  exhorts  to  awake,  to  shake  her- 
self from  the  dust,  and  to  put  on  her  beautiful  garments. 
Here,  then,  we  have  the  source  of  human  beauty  re- 
vealed to  us,  and  the  way  of  access  to  it  pointed  out. 
Its  well-spring  is  in  the  heart,  in  the  affections.  It  takes 
on  its  forms  and  colors  in  the  understanding,  and  comes 
out  in  substantial  reality  in  bodily  forms  and  actions. 
Beauty  in  its  highest  qualities  is  represented  as  attainable, 
and  we  are  exhorted  to  make  it  our  own,  to  put  it  on  as 
a  garment,  to  pray  that  "the  beauty  of  the  Lord  our 
God"  may  be  upon  us. 

The  beauty  of  the  Lord,  the  supreme  and  infinite  type 
of  all  beauty,  has  its  origin  in  His  Divine  love,  and  its 
form  and  qualities  in  the  Divine  wisdom.  Man  was 
created  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  God.  He  was  made 
to  be  a  sharer  of  the  supreme  beauty.  The  Lord  is  in 
the  constant  effort  to  endow  us  with  this  beauty,  and  we 
are  clothed  with  it  in  the  degree  that  we  become  par- 
takers of  those  Divine  qualities  which  are  the  essence 
and  cause  of  beauty. 

Regard  beauty,  of  which  we  [propose  to  speak  at  the 


HUMAN  BEAUTY:  ITS  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE.  149 


present  time,  in  any  sense  you  please,  in  its  lowest  and 
most  sensuous,  or  its  highest  and  most  interior  qualities  ; 
beauty  of  form,  or  color,  or  motion, — in  all  cases  it  is  the 
expression  of  some  affection  or  interior  grace.  All 
beauty  is  spiritual  in  its  origin.  The  beauty  of  a  ma- 
terial object  consists  in  its  meaning,  in  what  it  says  to  us 
of  something  more  excellent  than  itself.  The  beauty  of 
a  flower,  of  a  tree,  of  a  winding  stream,  or  of  a  landscape 
consists  in  what  it  suggests  to  us  of  something  higher 
than  itself,  because  it  is  the  form  of  that  higher  quality. 
The  beauty  of  the  material  world  is  an  effect  which  ex- 
presses the  excellence  of  its  spiritual  cause. 

This  must  be  so  from  the  very  nature  of  the  relation 
between  cause  and  effect.  Every  cause  seeks  to  repro- 
duce and  express  itself,  in  all  its  qualities,  in  lower  forms. 
Innocence,  purity,  and  loveliness  of  character  must  tend 
to  express  themselves  in  lovely  forms.  When  we  reflect 
that  the  material  universe  is  the  embodiment  of  the 
Divine  love  and  wisdom  in  material  substances,  we  can 
see  why  it  is  that  there  is  so  much  beauty  in  the  world. 
Every  material  object  and  living  thing  has  a  beauty  of 
some  kind.  Even  the  weeds  that  cumber  the  fields, 
the  thorn  and  the  thistle,  which  men  regard  as  a  curse 
for  sin,  the  insect  which  stings  and  poisons  us,  the  de- 
graded reptile,  and  the  wild  beast  which  tears  and  devours, 
have  some  beauty  of  form  or  structure  or  color  or  motion. 
Perverted  forms  as  they  are  of  the  Divine  loveliness,  they 
still  bear  some  trace  of  its  impress. 

If  w«  find  traces  of  the  beauty  of  the  Lord  in  the 
lowest  things,  we  may  expect  to  find  it  more  fully  em- 
bodied in  the  highest,  and  our  expectations  will  not  be 

13* 


150      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

disappointed.  We  shall  find  it  in  its  perfection  in  the 
human  face  and  form.  Here  also  we  can  see  how  the 
outward  beauty  is  the  effect  and  expression  of  inward  and 
spiritual  beauty.  This  would  follow  as  a  necessary  result 
from  the  fact  that  the  material  body  is  cast  into  the 
mould  of  the  spirit.  The  spirit  has  fashioned  it.  The 
spirit  is  the  potter,  and  the  body  is  clay  in  its  hands,  which 
it  is  constantly  acting  upon  to  mould  into  its  own  like- 
ness. This  is  true  of  the  material  body  in  the  first  years 
of  our  existence,  and  of  the  spiritual  body  in  every  stage 
of  our  being.  There  are,  in  general,  two  kinds  of 
human  beauty  :  beauty  in  its  essence  or  cause,  and 
beauty  in  its  expression.  All  beauty  has  its  origin  in 
love  and  its  expression  in  truth.  A  pure  and  innocent 
affection  in  the  will,  united  with  genuine  truth  in  the 
understanding,  cannot  fail  of  producing  beautiful  effects. 

We  must  not  forget  that  love  and  truth  are  not  ab- 
stractions. They  are  the  most  potent  forces  that  act 
upon  the  spiritual  or  the  material  body.  We  are  pene- 
trated by  them  ;  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  in 
them.  The  material  body  is  constantly  subject  to  their 
action,  has  its  life  from  them.  There  is  a  force  constantly 
present  in  water,  and  in  all  matter,  which  forms  it  into 
spheres  when  the  matter  assumes  a  fluid  state  and  is  left 
free  to  move.  So  there  is  in  the  very  nature  and  activi- 
ties of  the  Divine  love  and  the  Divine  truth,  from  which 
we  receive  all  our  life,  a  tendency  to  the  human  form  and 
an  active  influence  to  make  that  form  as  noble  and  beau- 
tiful as  possible.  Thus  those  very  forces  and  principles 
which  are  the  essence  and  cause  of  all  beauty  are  con- 
stantly acting  upon  us  to  make  our  faces  and  forms  and 


HUMAN  BEAUTY:  ITS  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE.  151 


motions  the  complete  correspondents  and  embodiments 
of  their  nature.  Thus  the  Divine  forces  which  give  us 
Hfe  tend  to  mould  us  into  every  form  of  beauty,  in  the 
same  way  and  according  to  the  same  immutable  law  by 
which  the  Divine  forces  in  nature  tend  to  make  material 
forms  beautiful.  All  that  we  have  to  do  to  become  more 
and  more  beautiful  is  to  co-operate  with  these  forces,  to 
let  them  have  free  play  through  us,  and  to  supply  them 
with  the  right  kind  of  materials  for  their  workmanship. 

The  first  thing  we  are  to  do  is  to  exercise  pure,  inno- 
cent, heavenly  affections.  Without  this  it  is  impossible 
to  become  more  beautiful  than  we  are,  or  to  retain  what 
we  may  have  received  from  hereditary  influences.  The 
beauty  of  youth,  of  mere  surface  and  complexion,  will 
fade  like  a  flower.  There  must  be  some  inherent,  vital, 
and  unfailing  source  which  supplies  natural  wastes  with 
finer  and  more  substantial  substances,  and  replenishes 
them  with  perennial  freshness  and  moulds  them  into  a 
lovelier  beauty.  The  quality  and  degree  of  our  beauty 
and  nobleness  of  form  will  be  determined  by  the  quality 
and  degree  of  our  spiritual  affections.  There  is  no  pos- 
sibility of  failure  in  this  respect.  They  are  orderly  results 
of  normal  causes.  Every  affection  you  cherish  leaves  its 
impress  upon  you.  It  tends  to  fashion  the  external  form 
into  its  likeness,  and  there  is  no  escape  from  its  effect. 

This  is  a  truth  of  common  observation  and  experience. 
We  see  it  in  its  accumulated  and  large  results,  in  the 
faces  and  forms  of  every  man  and  woman  we  meet. 
Every  disposition  habitually  indulged  forms  its  image  in 
the  features  of  the  face,  in  the  motions  of  the  body,  and 
in  every  fibre  and  muscle  of  its  form.    Its  first  effect  is 


152      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


upon  the  brain,  and  through  that  upon  every  part  of  the 
whole  organization.  The  face  is  the  index  of  the  mind, 
because  the  mind  forms  it  and  makes  it  the  theatre  on 
which  it  enacts  all  its  passions.  Every  face  is  a  history, 
and  in  its  small  compass  are  recorded  the  sins  and  sor- 
rows, the  joys  and  fears,  the  malignities,  the  lusts,  the 
cunning,  the  ferocity,  the  hope  and  trust,  the  struggles 
with  evil  passions,  the  integrity,  the  innocence  and  peace 
of  many  generations.  We  can  only  read  some  of  the 
most  prominent  and  boldest  characters.  But  the  history 
of  all  the  influences,  large  and  small,  which  have  com- 
bined to  form  the  character  of  your  ancestry  from  its 
beginning  is  embodied  in  your  own  person.  We  talk  of 
fleeting  influences.  There  are  no  fleeting  influences. 
Every  influence  is  eternal.  The  Lord  does  not  write 
human  history  in  fading  colors  and  on  perishable  leaves. 
You  think  you  can  be  false  or  cunning,  that  you  can  in- 
dulge in  malignities  and  lusts,  and  no  one  will  know  it, 
and  that  you  can  escape  all  lasting  effects  of  it.  How 
much,  how  terribly  much,  you  are  mistaken  !  You 
cannot  sulk  in  the  corner  ;  you  cannot  indulge  in  an 
unkind  thought  ;  you  cannot  say  a  sharp  word  ;  you 
cannot  indulge  in  a  revengeful  feeling  ;  no,  you  cannot 
think  a  false  thought,  or  do  an  evil  deed,  and  escape  the 
record  of  its  shame  in  the  book  of  your  own  life.  The 
Lord  has  made  the  mind  self-registering.  Every  falsity 
leaves  a  shadow  upon  it,  every  evil  a  stain. 

I  know  the  influence  of  one  evil  once  indulged  may 
be  small ;  its  consequences  may  seem  as  fleeting  as  the 
act  itself.  But  it  is  not  so.  The  brutality  and  ferocity 
and  stolidity  and  meanness,  the  low  cunning  and  worldly 


HUMAN  BEAUTY:  ITS  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE.  153 


shrewdness,  the  stony  selfishness  and  cruel  malignities, 
the  pride  and  vanities  and  contempt  which  we  see  in  the 
forms  and  faces  of  men  and  women  are  the  recorded 
results  of  the  indulgence  of  evils  which  were  momentary 
and  casual  in  their  inception. 

My  young  friends,  will  you  not  remember  this  when 
you  are  tempted  to  think  falsely,  to  feel  wickedly,  or  to 
act  sinfully  ?  The  wicked  feeling  has  its  sharp  graver  in 
its  cunning  hands,  and  while  you  indulge  the  feeling  it  is 
etching  its  ugly  lines  in  your  face  and  twisting  your  feat- 
ures into  its  own  form.  The  impure  thought  is  photo- 
graphing itself  upon  the  delicate  but  tenacious  forms  of 
your  whole  nature,  and  leaving  its  foul  stains  indelibly 
impressed  upon  you.  If  every  time  you  told  or  looked 
a  falsehood,  or  indulged  a  hate,  the  name  of  the  evil 
should  come  out  in  distinct  and  black  lines  upon  your 
forehead  and  repeat  itself  in  ugly  characters  in  your 
whole  face,  with  what  horror  you  would  shun  it !  It  is 
so  written,  in  very  faint  lines  at  first,  it  may  be,  but  every 
repetition  of  the  evil  increases  their  distinctness.  The 
angels  can  read  the  whole  history  in  the  hand  ;  they  can 
tell  the  quality  of  the  mind  by  the  tone  of  the  voice. 

According  to  the  same  law,  every  good  affection  and 
true  thought  registers  itself  in  its  own  proper  characters. 
Every  heavenly  affection  leaves  its  impress  upon  you  and, 
to  the  extent  of  its  influence,  moulds  you  into  its  own 
image.  Every  element  of  the  noblest  and  purest  beauty 
is  contained  in  the  principles  of  goodness  and  truth.  As 
these  principles  are  brought  into  act  and  become  sub- 
stantiated in  the  form  and  features,  they  change  them  into 
their  own  likeness.    And  they  do  it  by  imperceptible  i)ut 


154      PJ^OGJ^ESS  AV  SPIRITUAL  KKOWLEDGE. 


constantly  acting  influences.  When  you  think  kindly  of 
others  and  your  heart  goes  out  to  them  in  desires  for 
their  good,  the  beauty  of  kindness  is  winning  its  way 
through  the  labyrinth  of  many  organic  forms,  leaving  its 
smile  and  its  impress  upon  them  all  as  it  passes,  until  it 
comes  out  in  open  expression  upon  the  face. 

Some  faces  are  like  landscapes  in  a  day  of  broken 
clouds.  Sometimes  the  shadows  lie  dark  and  heavy 
upon  them.  When  the  features  are  in  repose  you  can 
see  the  history  of  former  generations  which  has  been 
stereotyped  upon  them  ;  the  weariness  of  protracted 
labor,  shadows  of  disappointed  hopes,  and  the  sadness 
of  many  sorrows.  But  when  the  light  of  an  awakened 
heavenly  affection  breaks  through  their  parting  folds  the 
face  becomes  illuminated,  transfigured  with  the  glory  of 
the  inward  light.  You  can  look  away  into  its  serene 
deeps  and  see  in  every  feature  a  beauty  born  of  heavenly 
influences. 

Patience  in  duty  and  trust  in  the  Lord  contain  impor- 
tant elements  of  beauty,  which  they  impart  to  the  face 
and  to  the  whole  form.  They  give  quietness  and  com- 
posure to  the  features  and  to  the  actions.  Through  the 
face,  as  through  a  transparent  veil,  you  can  look  down 
into  the  serene  depths  of  being,  where  no  storms  can 
reach,  where  all  is  stable  and  in  repose,  and  see  the  foun- 
dations on  which  the  natural  life  rests  and  the  perennial 
springs  from  which  its  thoughts  and  affections  flow. 
Every  time  you  repress  an  impatient  desire,  every  time 
you  restrain  an  impatient  word  or  act,  every  time  you 
take  up  the  burden  of  duty  cheerfully,  every  time  you 
meet  the  conflicts  and  the  vicissitudes  of  life  in  patient 


HUMAN  BEAUTY:  ITS  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE.  155 

confidence  in  the  infinite  goodness  which  makes  all  things 
work  together  for  good  for  those  who  trust  in  the  Lord, 
you  make  some  progress  in  bringing  your  whole  form 
into  the  image  of  that  repose  and  quietude  which  impart 
a  charm  to  every  feature  and  every  action. 

But  the  supreme  beauty  which  charms  all  hearts  is  in- 
nocence, purity.  This  is  the  charm  of  the  beauty  of 
infancy  and  childhood.  It  is  not  beauty  of  form  ;  it  is 
not  grace  of  motion.  It  is  the  purity  and  sweetness  of 
heaven  which  shine  through  a  little  child.  The  material 
body  is,  as  it  were,  transparent.  It  is  like  the  charm  of 
flowers,  which  is  not  so  much  in  their  forms  as  in  their 
delicacy  of  texture  and  purity  of  color  and  sweetness  of 
fragrance.  They  awaken  the  perception  that  they  are 
offering  up  themselves  for  our  delight. 

Innocence  combines  all  the  Christian  graces, — unsel- 
fishness, trust,  repose,  unconscious  action,  which  is  al- 
ways beautiful,  gentleness,  devotion  to  others,  and  devout 
adoration  of  the  Lord  ;  that  worship  of  the  heart  which 
surrenders  itself  to  the  Divine  will,  to  be  guided  by  its 
wisdom  and  to  be  moulded  into  its  likeness.  Innocence 
is  not  weakness  or  ignorance.  It  is  wisdom  and  power 
itself  It  is  power  without  noise.  It  is  the  power  which 
makes  the  grass  grow,  and  planets  fly  through  the  silent 
spaces  with  ceaseless  motion.  It  is  the  wisdom  which  uses 
the  mightiest  forces  for  human  help  and  culture.  It  is 
supreme  order,  which  is  always  beautiful.  Feebleness  is 
not  beauty.  Strength  and  beauty  must  go  hand  in  hand, 
as  they  always  do  when  the  strength  is  used  for  benefi- 
cent purposes. 

While  you  are  in  the  effort  to  keep  the  great  com- 


156      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


mandinent  of  love  to  the  Lord,  and  just  to  the  extent 
that  you  keep  it,  you  will  be  gaining  the  heavenly 
beauty.  You  open  your  heart  to  the  Lord,  and  to  the 
living  springs  of  all  grace  and  comeliness.  You  put 
yourself  into  His  hands  who  has  the  perfect  ideal  of 
nobleness  and  beauty,  and  perfect  skill  to  fashion  every 
feature  and  form  according  to  it.  The  Divine  truth, 
which  is  the  Holy  Spirit,  contains  in  its  substance  and  in 
all  its  forces  and  forms  and  influence  a  tendency  to  ulti- 
mate itself  in  the  perfection  of  beauty.  As  you  open 
your  affections  to  the  influence  of  these  Divine  forces 
they  will  flow  in  and  do  their  work.  They  will  efface  the 
lines  of  deformity  which  sin  has  engraved  ;  they  will  har- 
monize discordant  proportions  ;  -they  will  round  into  ful- 
ness imperfect  forms  ;  they  will  reduce  to  order  conflicting 
motions,  and  bring  the  whole  person  into  unity. 

Every  effort  you  make  to  learn  the  truths  which  con- 
stitute the  Divine  wisdom,  and  to  incorporate  them  into 
your  nature,  will  have  its  effect.  While  you  are  reflecting 
upon  them  they  are  imbuing  your  understanding  with 
their  sweet  and  lovely  spirit,  softening  its  hardness, 
quickening  its  perceptions,  harmonizing  its  activities. 
The  soft  and  lambent  light  of  trutli  is  flowing  down  with 
more  fulness  and  clearness  into  the  eyes,  and  a  power 
which  attracts  and  makes  the  heart  glad  begins  to  beam 
forth  from  them.  As  you  go  on  with  the  work  and 
receive  more  largely  of  this  informing  life  and  beautifying 
spirit,  it  softens  the  hardness  and  smooths  the  roughness 
of  the  voice,  and  imbues  it  with  those  qualities  which  touch 
the  sympathies  and  win  the  heart  ;  it  penetrates  every 
feature,  remoulds  tlie  face  after  the  heavenly  pattern, 


HUMAN  BEAUTY:  ITS  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE.  157 

rounds  the  limbs,  gives  nobleness  and  comely  dignity  to 
the  whole  form,  and  sways  every  motion  to  harmony 
born  of  an  inward  grace,  and  expressing  it.  As  the  life 
of  the  Divine  love  becomes  fuller  and  purer  the  whole 
person  will  become  the  very  form  of  heavenly  love  ;  it 
will  become  the  embodiment  of  Zion,  the  perfection  of 
beauty. 

This  is  no  fancy.  Your  own  observation  can  teach 
you  that  it  is  not.  You  know  how  fierce  passions  in- 
flame and  distort  the  face,  and  how  heavenly  affections 
fill  it  with  a  serene  light  and  a  most  winning  loveliness. 
You  have  seen  faces  that  were  not  regular  and  cleanly  cut 
in  particular  features,  but  which  had  an  inward  beauty 
that  charmed  every  beholder.  All  that  is  necessary  to 
render  any  form  of  the  face  fixed  and  permanent  is  to 
cherish  the  affections  which  express  themselves  in  that 
form. 

It  may  be  replied  that,  if  this  principle  is  true,  the  good 
must  be  the  most  beautiful.  Yet  some  of  the  worst  men 
and  women  have  been  famous  for  their  beauty.  There  is 
a  kind  of  external  beauty,  regularity  of  features,  sym- 
metry of  form,  delicacy  of  complexion,  which  is  due  to 
inheritance  and  to  causes  not  within  one's  self;  but  if  the 
soul  is  deformed  with  evil  this  superficial  beauty  is  but  a 
veil  which  ill  conceals  the  ugliness  within.  Without  the 
beauty  of  expression  which  shines  forth  from  the  soul  the 
most  that  the  body  can  attain  is  the  lifeless  beauty  of  the 
statue  or  the  painted  mask. 

Again,  while  it  is  true  that  the  material  body  is  so  inti- 
mately allied  to  the  spiritual  that  it  becomes  changed  by 
itj  making  the  face  the  index  of  the  mind,  the  physical 

14 


158      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

form  may  respond  but  slowly  to  the  changes  of  the  spirit ; 
so  much  so  that  a  face  that  is  outwardly  fair  may  conceal 
an  infernal  character  ;  and  again  a  plain  and  unattractive 
face  may  clothe  a  hea\'enly  spirit.  Our  spiritual  bodies, 
the  bodies  in  which  we  are  to  live  and  by  which  we  are  to 
be  identified  forever,  are  the  exact  forms  of  our  affections. 
They  change  easily,  and  become  the  perfect  exponent 
and  image  of  the  affections  we  habitually  cherish.  The 
purer  and  more  interior  the  affection,  and  the  more  fully 
it  becomes  united  with  genuine  truths,  the  more  beautiful 
we  shall  become.  It  is,  therefore,  in  the  power  of  every 
one  to  become  as  beautiful  and  noble  in  form  as  he 
chooses  ;  and  the  way  to  do  it  is  to  cultivate  those  heav- 
enly affections  which  mould  the  face  and  limbs  and  every 
part  of  the  body  into  forms  corresponding  to  their  quality. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  the  affections  that  there  is  no 
assignable  limit  to  their  strength  and  excellence,  beyond 
which  they  cannot  pass.  You  see  what  a  prospect  this 
holds  out  for  our  attainment  in  personal  beauty  and  noble- 
ness of  form.  You  can  see  that  what  Swedenborg  says 
of  the  beauty  of  the  angels  must  be  true,  because  it 
follows  from  causes  which  we  see  in  operation  here.  He 
says  their  beauty  surpasses  the  power  of  words  to  de- 
scribe or  of  any  human  art  to  portray.  Their  faces  are 
so  glorious  and  lovely,  and  shine  with  such  a  heavenly 
light,  that  they  penetrate  the  hearts  of  those  who  behold 
them,  with  enchanting  power.  They  are  the  very  forms 
of  loveliness.  They  are  purity  and  innocence  itself  The 
eyes  of  the  angels  are  aflame  with  heavenly  love  ;  their 
faces  are  all  aglow  with  its  warmth  ;  their  features  are 
moulded  into  its  nobleness  and  rounded  into  its  harmo- 


HUMAN  BEAUTY:  ITS  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE.  159 


nies  ;  its  dignity  is  enthroned  in  their  foreheads  ;  its 
sweetness  is  folded  in  their  Hps,  and  its  gracefuhiess  sways 
every  motion.  The  voice  is  so  modulated  by  heavenly 
affections  that  it  is  felt  to  be  the  sweetness  and  power  of 
love  itself  speaking.  The  whole  form  is  the  embodiment 
of  a  benign  power,  and  radiant  with  the  very  life  of 
heaven. 

All  the  faculties  are  in  the  freshness  and  vigor  and  re- 
splendent comeliness  of  their  spring-time  ;  they  grow  as 
the  lily  and  blossom  as  the  rose.  All  these  elements  of 
loveliness  continue  to  unfold  into  more  excellent  forms. 
It  is  not  the  glorious  beauty  of  a  fading  flower.  It  con- 
tinues to  increase  ;  it  glows  with  a  serener  light  ;  it  be- 
comes the  more  complete  and  varied  embodiment  of  a 
holier  joy,  a  purer  love,  and  a  sweeter  peace.  Its  per- 
fections must  continue  to  increase  to  eternity. 

All  the  qualities  and  forms  of  beauty  are  in  heavenly 
love,  as  all  germs  are  in  their  seed.  You  have  only  to 
cherish  and  cultivate  them,  which  is  to  exercise  them  in 
love  towards* the  Lord  and  towards  man.  You  have  only 
to  live  the  life  of  them,  and  you  will  grow  into  their  ap- 
propriate forms,  with  more  certainty  than  the  seed  grows 
into  the  loveliness  of  the  lily,  or  the  acorn  into  the  gran- 
deur of  the  oak. 

Why  is  not  this  an  excellence  and  a  glory  worthy  of 
our  thought  and  effort  ?  If  physical  beauty,  which  fades 
and  perishes  so  soon,  lay  within  as  easy  reach  as  heavenly 
beauty,  which  is  fresh,  perennial,  and  which  will  continue 
to  increase  in  perfection  forever,  we  should  all  strive  for 
it  ;  multitudes  would  think  no  price  too  great  to  pay 
for  it. 


l6o      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


We  are  becoming  forms  of  hea\  enly  beauty  or  of  in- 
fernal deformity  every  day.  Whether  we  seek  it  or  not, 
every  affection  we  exercise  has  its  influence  in  moulding 
our  form  ;  every  truth  we  learn  enters  into  its  composi- 
tion ;  every  thought  we  think  and  every  good  deed  we 
do  is  the  graver's  tool  which  gives  a  new  line  of  beauty, 
or  the  painter's  brush  which  adds  a  lovelier  tint.  Yes, 
every  gentle  act  leaves  its  gentleness  in  the  hand  that 
performs  it  ;  every  noble  deed  leaves  the  imprint  of  its 
nobility  ;  every  heavenly  purpose  carried  into  effect  com- 
municates its  fragrance  and  beauty  as  a  Divine  benediction 
to  the  soul.    Strength  and  beauty  are  in  His  sanctuary. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  EVIL. 


"  The  serpent  beguiled  me,  and  I  did  eat.'' — Genesis  iii.  13. 
PHE  problem  to  which  I  invite  your  attention  has 


*  excited  the  interest  and  baffled  the  ingenuity  and 
wisdom  of  the  best  men  and  the  most  profound  thinkers 
in  past  generations.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the 
Christian  Church,  its  solution  has  been  impossible  without 
involving  the  Divine  character  and  purposes  in  many  con- 
tradictions and  absurdities.  I  believe  that  the  doctrines 
of  the  New  Church  gi\-e  us  the  principles  necessary  to 
its  solution,  and  teach  us  how  to  use  them  to  attain  the 
result.  I  can  hope,  however,  to  do  but  little  more  than 
to  state  the  fundamental  conditions  of  the  problem,  and 
point  out  the  direction  in  which  we  must  look  for  its 
solution. 

First,  it  is  essential  to  have  a  precise  and  clear  idea  of 
what  evil  essentially  is,  for,  if  we  have  no  exact  knowl- 
edge of  the  problem,  we  certainly  cannot  solve  it.  We 
shall  be  working  with  materials  which  we  do  not  under- 
stand to  produce  an  unknown  result.  Is  evil  a  distinct 
substance,  form,  or  power  in  itself,  acting  in  opposition  to 
good  and  tending  to  pervert  and  destroy  it?  If  so,  it 
must  either  be  self-existent  and  eternal,  or  it  must  have 
been  created.  If  it  was  created,  it  must  have  been 
created  by  the  Lord,  and  then  He  must  be  the  author  of 
both  evil  and  good.  This  is  the  opinion  held  by  many, 
and  the  logic  by  which  they  are  brought  to  this  conclu- 
l  14*  161 


i62      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


sion  seems  clear  and  irrefragable,  if  you  admit  the  defi- 
nition and  the  premises. 

But  we  cannot  admit  that  there  are  two  self-existent 
and  independent  forces  or  substances  or  creators,  for  that 
would  be  the  admission  that  there  are  two  Gods.  Nor, 
on  the  other  hand,  can  we  admit  that  the  Lord  created 
evil,  for  that  would  be  acting  contrarj-  to  Himself  A 
Being  of  infinite  love  and  wisdom  seeks  to  accomplish 
certain  ends,  and  for  that  purpose  He  creates  the  universe 
and  peoples  it  with  intelligent  human  beings.  Can  we 
suppose  that  at  the  same  time  and  running  all  along 
parallel  with  it  He  creates  a  discordant  power,  that 
tends  to  oppose  and  thwart  His  purposes  of  infinite  love  ; 
that  He  mars  His  own  work  and  defeats  His  own  ends  ? 
Such  a  supposition  is  absurd.  It  is  impossible  in  the 
nature  of  things.  Infinite  wisdom  could  not  act  in  that 
way ;  it  would  be  infinite  folly.  Imagine  a  benevolent 
and  wise  man  earnestly  seeking  to  accomplish  some  pur- 
pose of  good,  but  at  the  same  time  voluntarily  and 
knowingly  doing  something  that  would  defeat  his  pur- 
pose. A  wise  man  could  not  do  it.  It  would  be  folly. 
Much  less  could  a  Being  of  infinite  wisdom  do  anything 
to  hinder  or  defeat  the  ends  of  His  wisdom.  Every 
rational  mind  must  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  Lord 
did  not  create  evil.  The  question  arises,  then,  If  evil  is 
not  self-e.xistent  and  the  Lord  did  not  create  it,  wherein 
did  it  originate?  It  could  not  create  itself,  it  did  not 
always  exist,  and  the  Lord  did  not  create  it,  and  yet 
we  have  the  most  mournful  and  incontestable  evidence 
that  it  does  exist.  This  is  the  question  to  which  w-e 
must  address  ourselves. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  EVIL. 


It  is  an  axiom  or  a  self-evident  proposition,  that  a 
Being  of  infinite  love  could  propose  no  end  for  His  ac- 
tivities but  the  best  and  highest  good  of  others,  for  any- 
other  end  would  show  that  He  was  not  infinitely  good. 
It  would  imply  that  there  were  some  limitations  or  excep- 
tions to  His  love.  Again,  a  Being  of  infinite  wisdom 
could  not  fail  to  devise  the  best  possible  means  to  carry 
into  effect  His  purposes.  The  least  failure  in  this  would 
show  beyond  question  that  He  was  not  infinitely  wise-. 
There  is  some  limit  to  His  wisdom.  The  ends  of  the 
Lord,  then,  must  be  the  largest  good  of  all,  and  the 
Divine  methods  must  be  the  best  possible  ;  they  must  be 
perfect. 

Everything  that  tends  to  oppose  the  Divine  ends,  or 
that  in  any  way  or  degree  tends  to  thwart  them,  must  be 
evil.  There  must  be  a  Divine  order  and  method  that  are 
infinitely  perfect,  and  every  form  and  force  of  which 
must  tend  to  good.  Everything  that  tends  to  disturb 
that  order  and  method  must  be  evil  and  false.  Now  let 
us  see,  if  we  can,  how  such  disturbance  and  disorder 
could  originate  and  not  come  from  the  Lord.  In  doing 
this  we  must  commence  with  things  that  are  known  and 
familiar,  and  advance  step  by  step  from  the  known  to  the 
unknown. 

Let  us  take  some  article  of  human  invention  and  con- 
struction, a  watch,  for  example.  Let  us  suppose  a  man 
has  invented  and  made  a  perfect  watch  ;  that  is,  it  is  made 
of  the  best  materials  that  exist,  and  every  part  of  it  is  con- 
structed in  a  perfect  manner.  It  keeps  perfect  time,  and 
will  continue  to  do  so  forever,  unless  the  order  of  its  move- 
ments should  be  interrupted  or  obstructed,  or  the  form  of 


1 64     PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

some  of  its  parts  should  be  changed.  Now,  every  one 
knows  that  the  watch  will  lose  its  perfection.  It  will  cease 
to  keep  accurate  time.  It  will  lose  its  goodness.  Dis- 
turbance and  evil  will  be  introduced.  How  does  the  evil 
originate?  It  was  not  some  self-existent,  independent 
power  which  acted  in  opposition  to  the  order  and  mo- 
tions of  the  watch.  The  maker  certainly  did  not  cause 
the  difficulty,  for  by  the  supposition  he  made  it  perfect 
in  all  its  forms  and  materials.  How,  then,  does  it  come  ? 
From  the  inherent  and  essential  qualities  of  matter.  Its 
parts  will  wear  by  friction,  and  thus  the  perfect  form 
and  finish  of  the  wheels  and  pivots  is  destroyed.  The 
particles  worn  away  accumulate  as  dust  and  dirt,  the  oil 
evaporates  by  heat,  the  surfaces  become  dry  and  rough, 
and  the  action  of  the  wheels  is  impeded.  The  evil,  then, 
did  not  originate  with  the  maker  of  the  watch.  He  did 
all  that  he  could  to  prevent  it.  It  did  not  exist  previous  to 
the  construction  of  the  watch,  but  it  grew  out  of  its 
action,  out  of  those  very  qualities  which  were  essential 
to  the  existence  of  the  watch. 

But  some  one  may  say,  ' '  Suppose  the  substances  of 
which  the  watch  is  composed  were  so  hard  that  they 
would  not  wear  and  so  smooth  that  there  would  be  no 
friction  ?"  If  they  had  been,  the  watch  would  have  been 
impossible,  for  the  substances  could  not  have  been  cut 
and  cast  into  the  necessary  forms.  We  cannot  avoid  the 
conclusion,  therefore,  that,  given  the  possibility  of  the 
watch,  you  must  also  grant  the  inevitable  consequence 
that  it  will  generate  those  evils  which  will  destroy  it. 
This  princij^le  will  apply  to  everything  that  man  makes. 
The  evil  grows  out  of  the  essential  properties  of  matter. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  EVIL. 


t65 


If  we  rise  from  the  works  of  man  to  man  himself,  we 
find  tlie  same  elements  in  the  problem,  only  more  com- 
plicated. Let  us  take  man  as  a  physical  being  first,  and 
inquire  how  physical  evils  originate. 

The  organization  and  mechanism  of  the  material  body 
have  always  excited  the  admiration  and  wonder  of  those 
who  have  examined  its  structure.  That  a  series  of 
organic  forms  so  indefinite  in  number,  so  complicated  in 
their  relations,  so  various  in  form  and  use,  embracing 
solids,  fluids,  and  aeriform  substances  so  exact  in  their 
forms  and  so  delicate  in  their  structure  that  the  smallest 
mote  impedes  and  irritates  them,  and  the  puncture  of  the 
finest  needle  would  arrest  the  action  of  the  whole  organ- 
ism ;  only  less  than  infinite  in  their  motions  and  uses  and 
relations  to  one  another  and  to  the  material  world,  and  so 
perfectly  adjusted  to  the  spiritual  body  within  that  they 
both  act  as  one, — that  such  an  amazing  number  of  organic 
forms  and  series  of  forms  should  act  together  in  such 
perfect  harmony  in  such  a  diversity  of  conditions  is  a 
miracle  of  wisdom  whose  depths  no  finite  mind  can 
fathom.  When  this  microcosm,  this  universe  in  minia- 
ture, is  in  perfect  order,  as  it  came  from  the  hands  of  its 
Creator,  every  organ  performs  its  own  work  perfectly, 
and  every  activity  unites  with  every  other  and  flows 
towards  one  end  with  perfect  precision,  in  perfect  har- 
mony. So  miraculous  are  these  combinations,  and  so 
prompt  and  certain  in  their  operation,  that  you  cannot 
touch  the  body  in  any  point  with  the  finest  needle  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  the  fact  being  instantly  communi- 
cated to  every  part  of  the  corporeal  kingdom.  To  effect 
this  communication  myriads  of  myriads  of  organic  forms 


i66      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

are  excited  to  action,  and  they  all  act  together  as  one 
organ.  And  when  they  act  in  such  perfect  unity  the 
efifect  of  every  action  is  a  physical  delight,  and  the  whole 
body  is  good, — in  a  state  of  perfect  health. 

Physical  evil  is  the  interruption  of  this  order  ;  a  weak- 
ness or  defect  in  some  of  these  innumerable  organic  forms 
by  which  their  action  is  accelerated,  impeded,  or  de- 
stroyed. How  does  it  originate  ?  How  is  it  introduced 
into  this  perfect  kingdom  ?  And  in  what  does  it  essen- 
tially consist  ?  It  is  not  some  self-existent  force  that  wars 
upon  the  organization,  weakens  it,  makes  breaches  into 
the  citadel  of  life,  and  finally  overcomes  and  destroys  it. 
The  Lord  did  not  plant  disorder  in  the  body  side  by  side 
with  order.  He  moulded  it  into  a  perfect  order  and 
pronounced  it  good.  He  did  not  make  it  a  kingdom 
divided  against  itself  Whence,  then,  came  the  evil? 
Did  it  not  inevitably  originate  in  the  body's  own  action? 
The  body  has  laws  and  processes  of  growth,  change,  and 
decay.  It  is  a  flowing  stream,  and  if  the  current  is  ar- 
rested or  the  springs  are  not  fed,  it  becomes  inflamed  or 
wastes  away.  It  reaches  its  maximum  of  beauty  and 
power,  and  then  it  begins  to  decline,  to  wither  and  fade. 
It  wears  out  by  its  own  action,  like  any  machine.  And 
this  wear  is  necessarily  attended  with  weakness,  obstruc- 
tion, and  physical  evil  in  some  form. 

But  let  us  take  an  example  in  which  severe  pain  and 
loss  of  physical  structure  are  the  results.  The  body  is 
so  formed  that  it  cannot  bear  too  great  a  degree  of  heat 
without  pain  and  loss  of  structure.  A  little  child,  at- 
tracted by  the  beauty  and  brilliancy  of  flame,  thrusts  its 
hand  into  it  and  is  burnt.    E\  il  is  introduced  into  the 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  EVIL. 


167 


body.  It  is  filled  with  pain.  Its  organization  in  some 
of  its  parts  is  destroyed.  Whence  did  the  evil  originate  ? 
In  the  fire,  do  you  say  ?  But  the  fire  is  good.  Man 
could  not  live  without  heat.  The  earth  could  not  have 
been  formed  and  the  ceaseless  activities  of  the  creation 
kept  in  play  without  it.  It  is  the  motive  power  in  the 
universe,  the  most  useful  and  the  best  thing  in  it.  How, 
then,  can  evil  originate  from  it  ?  There  is  no  evil  in  it  ; 
it  is  wholly  good.  Do  you  say  it  originated  in  the  child  ? 
The  child  was  attracted  by  the  beauty  of  the  flame,  in 
accordance  with  a  universal,  most  necessary,  and  benevo- 
lent gift  of  the  Lord  to  man.  All  our  powers  are  called 
into  play  by  the  attraction  of  beauty  in  form  and  color. 
The  child  was  in  search  of  good,  according  to  the  laws 
of  its  being.  The  evil,  then,  was  not  in  the  child. 
Whence,  then,  did  it  come?  From  too  much  heat. 
From  a  want  of  proper  adjustment  between  the  relations 
of  the  physical  structure  to  the  heat.  The  proper  bal- 
ance, equilibrium,  between  the  two  was  lost,  and  hence 
there  was  a  disturbance  in  the  action  of  the  vital  powers. 

We  may  apply  the  same  principle  to  the  gratification 
of  the  appetites  and  every  sense.  The  child  will  thrust 
a  poison  into  its  mouth  as  readily  as  the  most  wholesome 
food,  if  it  is  pleasant  to  the  taste.  He  cannot  avoid  all 
possibility  of  violating  the  laws  of  his  physical  being 
without  perfect  knowledge,  and  he  cannot  gain  that  with- 
out experience.  And  there  are  some  physical  evils  from 
which  the  most  perfect  knowledge  would  not  protect  him, 
such  as  the  pain  resulting  from  too  great  heat  and  cold, 
and  from  unavoidable  accidents.  For  it  is  not  possible  to 
conceive  that  man  could  ever  have  passed  through  the 


i68      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


world  without  suffering  some  pain,  even  if  he  had  never 
sinned. 

If  the  question  is  asked  why  the  Lord  did  not  form  the 
material  body  so  that  it  would  not  wear  out  or  become 
deranged  or  be  sensible  of  pain,  the  answer  is,  He  could 
not.  He  made  the  best  body  possible,  and  out  of  the 
best  materials.  This  follows  from  our  axiom,  from  the 
very  nature  of  infinite  wisdom.  Infinite  wisdom  cannot 
fail  to  do  the  best  in  every  particular,  for  if  it  did  it  would 
not  be  infinite  wisdom.  We  can  see  also,  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  create 
an  organic  form  so  delicately  and  exquisitely  sensitive  to 
external  impressions  as  the  material  body,  which  would 
not  be  liable  to  pain  as  well  as  pleasure.  If  the  organi- 
zation of  the  material  body  must  be  so  perfectly  adjusted 
to  all  outward  relations  and  to  the  spirit  within  that  it 
must  act  in  perfect  harmony  with  both  to  produce  pleas- 
urable sensations,  it  follows  necessarily  that  any  de- 
rangement of  form  or  action  must  produce  pain.  If  the 
eye,  for  example,  must  be  so  delicately  organized  that  it 
can  be  moved  to  activity  by  the  waves  of  ether,  a  grosser 
substance  must  cause  it  pain.  A  body  without  ner\'es 
would  be  incapable  of  pain,  and  equally  incapable  of 
pleasure.  There  is  no  way  of  attaining  the  end  without 
the  liability  to  obstruction.  There  is  no  way  of  attaining 
physical  good  without  the  liability  to  physical  evil.  The 
very  delicacy  and  perfection  of  the  organization  neces- 
sary to  obtain  physical  good  increases  the  liability  to  dis- 
order and  physical  evil.  Physical  evil,  then,  does  not 
originate  outside  the  organization,  but  within  it,  from  the 
necessary  limitations  and  imperfections  of  matter.  The 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  EVIL. 


169 


Lord  does  not  create  it.  He  did  not  create  the  nerves  to 
communicate  pain,  but  pleasure  ;  but  He  could  not  so 
form  them  that  they  would  be  the  inlets  of  good,  and 
not,  under  changed  conditions,  of  evil.  On  the  side  of 
nature  the  Lord  is  under  the  same  kind  of  limitations  that 
man  is.  Li  constructing  a  musical  instrument  the  maker 
is  limited  in  one  direction  by  his  materials.  He  may 
make  one  that  is  in  perfect  tune,  but  from  the  imperfection 
of  the  wood  and  iron  it  will  become  discordant.  The 
Lord  would  be  limited  in  the  same  direction.  The  giant 
can  exert  no  more  force  with  a  straw  than  a  little  child. 

Here,  then,  we  have  numerous  examples  where  dis- 
cordant action  and  even  destruction  grow  out  of  perfect 
forms  and  relations,  from  two  causes  or  limitations.  First, 
from  the  use  of  instruments  which,  by  their  very  nature, 
lose  their  perfection  of  form  by  their  action.  And,  sec- 
ondly, from  the  loss  of  that  equilibrium  and  perfect  ad- 
justment which  is  essential  to  the  attainment  of  the  good 
which  the  Lord  has  provided  for  man,  and  which  He  is 
in  the  constant  effort  to  give  him.  The  Lord  did  not 
make  man's  organization  so  delicate,  and  all  its  relations 
so  nice,  that  it  might  easily  become  deranged,  but  be- 
cause there  was  no  other  way  of  giving  him  the  good. 

Let  us  now  take  another  step,  to  the  moral  and  spiritual 
plane  of  life.  As  a  spiritual  being,  man  is  a  form  organ- 
ized of  spiritual  substances,  as  his  material  body  is  a  form 
organized  of  material  substances.  He  was  created  in  the 
image  and  likeness  of  God,  and  was  therefore  formed  to 
receive  life  from  Him  in  perfect  forms.  His  will  and 
understanding,  his  thoughts  and  affections,  which  are 
organic  forms,  were  made  to  act  in  perfect  harmony  with 

H  IS 


170      FROGJ^ESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


the  inflowing  life  from  the  Lord,  and  when  they  so  act 
even-  motion  is  a  joy.  As  the  material  bod)'  stands  be- 
tw^een  the  soul  and  the  outward  world,  and  is  the  con- 
necting link  between  them,  receiving  life  from  the  soul 
and  being  acted  upon  by  nature,  so  man  himself  is  a 
conjoining  medium  between  the  Lord  and  the  outward 
world.  He  receives  life  from  the  Lord,  and  as  it  flows 
through  him  into  outward  act  and  finds  reaction  from  the 
material  world,  he  is  filled  with  delight  when  e\  er)-  form 
in  this  w'onderful  series  of  connecting  links  acts  in  perfect 
harmony.  This  was  man's  state  originally,  and  then  he 
was  good.  He  was  in  harmony  with  the  Lord,  with 
nature  and  man.  He  stood  in  perfect  equilibrium  be- 
tween the  forces  that  pressed  upon  him,  and,  conse- 
quently, in  perfect  freedom  to  turn  either  way,  to  the 
Lord  above  or  the  earth  beneath.  And  it  was  essential 
to  this  perfection  that  he  should  maintain  this  equilib- 
rium. Now,  the  question  is,  How  could  he  disturb  this 
order  ?  The  Lord  could  not  have  purposely  introduced 
any  disturbing  element.  There  was  no  self-existent,  in- 
dependent cause  outside  of  man  to  do  it ;  and  as  he  was 
perfect  in  his  own  form  and  activities,  whence  could  evil 
find  entrance? 

There  were  two  qualities  or  conditions  of  human  life 
that  rendered  evil  possible,  or  what  is  the  same  thing, 
that  rendered  it  possible  for  this  perfect  harmony  to  be 
disturbed  and  this  perfect  order  to  be  destroyed. 

The  first  was  human  freedom,  this  very  equilibrium  of 
which  I  have  spoken  ;  and  the  second  was  the  absolute 
necessity  that  the  sensuous  plane  of  life  should  come  into 
conscious  and  vigorous  existence  before  the  moral  and 


THK  ORIGI.V  OF  EVIL. 


171 


spiritual  life,  and,  consequently,  the  necessity  of  judging 
of  things  as  they  appeared  to  the  senses,  befoi^e  the 
rational  degree  of  the  mind  was  formed. 

Freedom  of  will  is  the  essential  human  element  in  man, 
and  freedom  implies  the  ability  to  choose  our  course  of 
action  and  to  act  according  to  our  choice  ;  and  it  also 
implies  that  from  our  point  of  A'ievv  there  must  be  some 
degree  of  good  in  either  course.  If  there  were  no  appar- 
ent good  except  in  one  direction,  there  would  really  be 
no  choice.  Freedom  implies  the  ability  to  love  one  thing 
or  another  ;  to  serve  God  or  Mammon  ;  to  go  in  the 
way  that  the  Lord  says  is  right,  or  in  the  way  that  seems 
to  us  to  be  right.  Consequently  in  man's  freedom  lies  the 
possibility  of  evil. 

Now,  if  any  one  asks  why  the  Lord  did  not  so  form 
man  that  he  could  only  do  right,  the  answer  is,  that  he 
would  not  have  been  a  man  if  He  had.  The  essential 
element  of  his  humanity  would  have  been  left  out  of  his 
composition.  He  might  have  been  an  animal,  a  being 
subject  to  his  instincts,  and  with  no  power  to  transgress 
them.  But  he  would  not  have  been  a  man.  To  ask 
why  the  Lord  did  not  create  man  without  the  specific  and 
essential  elements  of  humanity,  is  to  ask  why  He  did  not 
make  man  without  making  a  man,  or  by  making  some- 
thing else,  which  is  an  absurdity  that  answers  itself. 
That  very  excellence,  then,  which  elevates  man  above  all 
other  created  beings,  and  allies  him  in  a  peculiar  manner 
to  his  Creator,  contains  within  it,  or  more  strictly,  is,  a 
liability  to  fall. 

Granting,  then,  that  one  of  the  essential  elements  of  free- 
dom is  the  ability  to  turn  from  order  to  disorder,  from  good 


172      P/WGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

to  evil,  it  may  be  further  said  that  the  possibility  of  evil 
does  not  imply  its  necessity.  Very  true.  The  chances, 
therefore,  were  at  least  equal  for  man' s  remaining  as  he 
was  created,  in  the  integrity  of  his  being.  But  he  did 
not.  Why  did  the  scale  preponderate  towards  the  evil  ? 
I  answer.  The  weight  that  turned  the  balance  in  favor  of 
evil  was  the  other  necessary  element  in  human  life,  the 
sensuous  nature.  Man's  consciousness  must  be  opened 
into  this  world,  and  sensuous  delights  must  lie  very  close 
to  him  and  exert  a  great  power  over  him,  before  the 
reason  and  the  higher  faculties  of  the  will  are  sufficiently 
developed  to  guide  and  control  him.  His  first  knowl- 
edge must  be  that  of  the  senses  or  of  the  appearances 
of  things,  and  there  necessarily  grows  out  of  this  the 
tendency  to  put  too  much  confidence  in  their  testimony. 
They  constantly  act  upon  the  mind,  as  gravity  acts  upon 
the  body  ;  they  draw  us  towards  the  earth,  towards  natu- 
ral and  sensuous  delights.  Now  observe,  these  sensuous 
delights  are  just  as  necessary  to  human  life  as  the 
highest  spiritual  delights.  If  we  were  not  drawn  by  the 
pleasures  of  taste  or  impelled  by  hunger  to  take  food, 
who  would  eat  ?  Would  the  body  get  regular  and  suffi- 
cient supplies  of  substances  to  meet  its  wastes  ?  But  we 
are  in  danger  of  being  drawn  on  by  this  delight  to  indulge 
it  at  the  expense  of  higher  and  nobler  faculties,  especially 
before  we  have  experience  and  judgment  for  our  guide. 
Children  and  men  fall  from  this  cause  every  day. 

Again,  we  are  compelled  to  form  our  first  conclusions 
and  judgments  from  things  as  they  appear  to  us,  or  as 
they  are  to  the  senses,  or  to  our  own  experience.  Now, 
all  our  life  comes  from  God.    It  is  a  perpetual  gift  to  us, 


THE  GRIG IX  OF  EVIL. 


but  it  seems  to  originate  spontaneously  within  us.  It 
seems  to  be  our  own.  Our  senses  say  to  us  that  it  is 
our  own,  and  there  is  an  inclination  to  listen  to  them,  to 
believe  them,  and  to  claim  it  as  our  own,  and,  therefore,  to 
make  ourselves  as  gods.  For  that  which  has  underived, 
independent  life  is  God,  and  when  we  think  that  we  live 
of  ourselves,  we  love  ourselves  and  believe  in  ourselves 
and  forget  the  Lord.  We  are  inclined  to  love  that  which 
ministers  to  our  delights  ;  we  begin  to  love  to  receive 
good  rather  than  to  give  good.  And  this  must  invert 
the  whole  order  of  our  lives  ;  it  must  incline  us  to  look 
down  to  the  earth  rather  than  up  to  the  Lord.  The 
senses  and  sensuous  delights  allure  us  and  tend  to  mis- 
lead us  ;  they  tend  to  destroy  the  perfect  equilibrium  of 
all  our  faculties  between  this  world  and  the  spiritual  world, 
between  ourselves  and  the  Lord.  They  act  on  one  end 
of  the  scale  beam  with  a  continual  tendency  to  turn  it  in 
their  favor. 

These  sensuous  delights  are  the  serpent  that  tempted 
Eve,  and  they  are  the  serpent  that  has  tempted  every  son 
and  daughter  of  Eve  to  this  day.  The  disposition  to  judge 
for  ourselves  what  is  good,  is  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil.  The  Lord  knew  the  danger  of  eating  of  this 
tree,  and  warned  man  against  it.  He  gave  him  every  help 
which  it  was  possible  to  give.  If  man  had  been  willing 
to  obey  the  Lord  instead  of  his  sensuous  nature,  if  he  had 
been  willing  to  act  from  the  real  truth,  in  obedience, 
rather  than  from  appearances,  he  would  not  have  fallen. 

Some  will  wonder  why  the  Lord  created  the  serpent, 
and  why  He  put  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil  in  man's  garden  ;  why  He  gave  the  principles  which 

15* 


174     PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


they  represent  a  place  among  the  human  faculties.  The 
answer  is,  because  they  are  essential  parts  of  man's  mind. 
The  serpent  must  be  there  ;  man  must  be  drawn  to  ex- 
ternal things  by  his  delights.  The  tree  must  be  there  ; 
he  must  have  the  ability  as  of  himself  to  judge  of  good 
and  evil  in  order  to  call  all  his  faculties  into  play  and  to 
make  him  fully  a  man.  But  the  senses  magnify  the 
good  of  natural  things,  and  we  are  overborne  by  them, 
and  thus  the  equilibrium  is  destroyed,  and  the  true, 
orderly  flow  of  life  is  obstructed.  Man  begins  to  love 
himself  better  than  the  Lord,  and  the  world  better  than 
his  neighbor.  The  lower  faculties  become  strong  by 
exercise,  and  the  higher  close  and  dwindle  into  feeble- 
ness by  disuse,  until  man's  distinctly  spiritual  nature  dies, 
and  he  loses  sight  of  God,  of  heaven,  and  of  heavenly 
delights,  and  only  his  lower  faculties  are  alive. 

The  Lord  in  creating  man  ga\  e  him  no  faculty  that  was 
not  essential  to  his  perfection.  Every  faculty-  was  good. 
But  by  the  ver}-  nature  of  these  faculties  they  were  liable  to 
abuse,  to  be  exercised  at  the  expense  of  higher  faculties. 
Thus  the  equilibrium  was  destroyed  and  disorder  ensued. 

All  the  examples  and  illustrations  which  I  have  given 
from  human  employments,  from  man  as  a  physical,  in- 
tellectual, and  spiritual  being,  confirm  this  conclusion. 
Evil  had  no  existence  previous  to  the  creation.  It  is 
not  some  self- existent,  independent  being  or  force  that  is 
making  war  upon  good,  and  endeavoring  in  all  possible 
ways  to  defeat  and  destroy  k.  The  Lord  did  not  create 
evil,  nor.  on  the  other  hand,  could  He  prevent  it,  because 
the  possibility  of  abuse  inheres  in  those  ver>'  qualities 
of  freedom  and  rationality  which  make  man  to  be  man. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  EVIL. 


Mechanical  evils  have  their  origin  in  the  destructi- 
bility  of  matter,  a  quality  essential  to  its  usefulness. 
Physical  evils  are  made  possible  by  the  very  delicacy  and 
sensitiveness  which  adapt  the  body  to  be  man's  faithful 
servant.  Moral  evil  becomes  possible  when  the  Lord  be- 
stows upon  man  His  crowning  gifts  of  human  freedom 
and  rationality,  the  faculties  which  if  rightly  used  bring 
man  into  the  image  and  likeness  of  his  Maker. 

Knowing  how  evil  comes,  we  know  how  to  guard 
against  it.  Having  learned  that  the  senses  cannot  be 
trusted,  we  should  not  trust  them.  Knowing  that  natu- 
ral delights,  though  good  in  themselves,  clamor  for  grati- 
fication, and  if  not  controlled  by  reason  will  destroy  us, 
we  must  keep  them  in  subjection.  There  is  only  one 
Being  whom  we  can  absolutely  trust ;  He  is  the  Lord. 
Let  us  trust  Him.    Let  us  love  the  Lord  and  hate  evil. 


SIN  AND  ITS  PUNISHMENT. 


"  The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die." — Ezekiel  xviii.  20. 

D  Y  common  consent  man  is  a  sinner.  The  Lord  de- 
clares  it,  and  man  confesses  it.  Man  has  broken 
the  Divine  commandments,  and  he  now  stands  before  the 
Lord  guilty,  rebellious,  and  justly  exposed  to  the  penalty 
of  a  violated  law.  It  is,  therefore,  a  matter  of  the  most 
momentous  importance  to  him  to  know  his  exact  rela- 
tions to  the  law  and  to  the  Lord.  How  does  his  sin  affect 
his  own  being?  What  change  does  it  make  in  the  dis- 
position of  the  Lord  towards  him  ?  What  is  the  punish- 
ment for  sin,  and  how  is  it  administered  ?  What  are  the 
conditions  of  pardon,  and  how  can  man  comply  with 
them  ?  These  questions  have  been  answered  many  times. 
Hundreds  of  volumes  have  been  written  to  state  and  ex- 
plain them,  and  yet,  to  the  minds  of  most  people  the 
whole  subject  is  involved  in  many  difficulties,  and  the 
most  dangerous  errors  are  widely  prevalent  concerning 
it.  We  are,  each  one  of  us,  a  party  in  this  question.  It 
vitally  touches  our  spiritual  and  eternal  interests.  It  is 
not  merely  a  question  of  temporal  wealth  and  worldly 
prosperity  ;  the  riches  of  the  soul  are  brought  into  peril 
of  loss  ;  the  title  to  our  inlieritancc  of  the  blessings  and 
honor  and  glory  of  heaven  is  at  stake.  Let  us,  then, 
endeavor  to  understand  the  subject  as  it  really  is,  as 
176 


S/IV  AND  ITS  PUNISHMENT. 


177 


reason  enlightened  by  revelation  sees  it,  as  the  Lord 
Himself  has  presented  it  to  us  in  His  Holy  Word. 

There  are  four  points  of  inquiry  which  contain  the 
essential  elements  of  the  whole  subject.  These  questions 
are,  first.  What  is  sin?  in  what  does  man's  offence  really 
consist  ?  secondly,  What  is  the  penalty  ?  thirdly.  How  is 
it  inflicted?  and,  fourthly,  What  are  the  only  conditions 
of  escape  from  it  ? 

A  clear  and  rational  comprehension  of  the  principles 
involved  in  these  questions  will  enable  us  to  see  the  whole 
subject  in  its  true  light.  I  invite  your  attention,  there- 
fore, to  what  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  teach  us 
concerning  these  principles  which  involve  our  eternal 
interests. 

First,  What  is  sin  ?  The  common  and  the  true  answer 
is,  It  is  a  violation  of  a  Divine  law.  But  this  answer, 
though  true,  may  not  convey  a  true  idea,  or  at  least  may 
give  us  a  very  imperfect  idea  of  the  real  nature  of  sin. 
We  must  have  a  true  conception  of  the  nature  of  a  Divine 
Taw  before  we  can  see  what  the  necessary  results  of  its 
violation  are.  If  the  law  is  an  arbitrary  prohibition  or 
requirement,  having  no  necessary,  essential  ground  in 
the  nature  of  man  or  the  Lord,  but  is  imposed  upon  man 
because  the  Lord  had  a  right  to  do  it,  or  for  the  sake  of 
testing  his  obedience,  the  punishment  is  as  arbitrary  as 
the  law.  There  is  no  necessary  connection  between  them. 
The  punishment  is  not  the  direct  effect  of  the  sin,  but  of 
the  Lord's  displeasure.  But  if  the  Divine  laws  are  the 
principles  of  man's  life  ;  if  man  before  he  fell  was  the 
personal  embodiment  of  them,  as  the  plant  is  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  laws  of  vegetable  life,  or  the  material  body 
m 


178      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

of  animal  life,  then  the  punishment  of  their  violation  fol- 
lows as  a  necessary  effect.  As  the  plant  withers  and  dies 
when  the  conditions  of  its  life  and  growth  are  not  com- 
plied with  ;  as  the  material  body  becomes  feeble  and  is 
filled  with  pain  when  its  laws  are  broken,  so  disease  and 
pain  and  death  must  inevitably  follow  disobedience  to  the 
laws  of  the  soul.  This  point,  then,  must  be  setded  before 
we  can  answer  the  question  we  propose  for  our  consid- 
eration, and  upon  its  answer  will  depend  the  answer  to 
all  the  other  questions. 

The  prevalent  theology  is  based  upon  the  theory  that 
the  law  of  the  Lord,  like  the  civil  laws  of  nations,  is  in  a 
certain  sense  arbitrary,  — that  is,  it  has  no  necessary,  in- 
herent ground  in  the  nature  of  man  and  his  relations  to 
his  Creator.  The  Lord,  by  His  absolute  ownership  of 
man,  had  a  right  to  impose  upon  him  any  test  of  his 
obedience,  or  to  demand  any  amount  of  homage  and 
serv  ice  He  chose,  and  to  attach  any  penalt\'  He  pleased. 
He  therefore  gave  him  such  laws  and  imposed  such  pen- 
alties as  in  His  wisdom  and  good  pleasure  He  saw  best, 
as  an  arbitrary  sovereign.  In  this  respect,  according  to 
common  opinion,  human  and  Divine  laws  are  similar. 
They  may  both  be  enacted  for  the  good  of  the  people, 
and  such  penalties  for  disobedience  or  non-performance 
of  duty  may  be  imposed  as  the  highest  wisdom  and  the 
most  benevolent  intentions  may  dictate  ;  but  still  they 
are  totally  unlike  physical  laws  in  their  operation.  We 
call  physical  laws  natural  because  they  are  embodied  in 
nature.  But  civil  laws  are  in  a  certain  sense  arbitrary. 
They  may  be  the  e.xpression  of  the  nature  and  relations 
of  societies  and  peoples,  or  they  may  not.    They  may  be 


SliV  AND  ITS  PUNISHMENT. 


179 


enacted  and  repealed.  Men  may  violate  them  and  escape 
the  penalty,  or  they  may  suffer  the  penalty  under  false 
accusation  when  they  are  innocent.  But  a  natural  law 
cannot  be  evaded.  Punishment  grows  out  of  its  viola- 
tion, and  only  the  guilty  can  suffer.  A  natural  law  can 
never  be  repealed  or  annulled.  It  may  be  overborne  for 
a  time  by  a  superior  force,  but  its  action  is  never  sus- 
pended. 

If  the  Divine  laws  are  arbitrary  in  the  same  sense  that 
any  law  of  human  enactment  may  be, — that  is,  if  they 
are  not  the  outward  expression  of  inward  principles 
actually  embodied  in  man's  spiritual  nature, — the  pun- 
ishment may  be  remitted  at  the  good  pleasure  of  the 
Lord,  or  it  may  not.  And  this  is  the  general  opinion  of 
the  Christian  world. 

But  there  is  abundant  testimony  in  the  Sacred  Scrip- 
tures that  the  laws  of  the  Lord  are  not  in  any  sense 
arbitrary.  "If  thou  wilt  enter  into  hfe,  keep  the  com- 
mandments." "  Thy  law  is  the  truth."  "  I  am  the  way, 
the  truth,  and  the  life"  are  Divine  declarations.  All  the 
promises  of  pardon  and  eternal  life  are  based  upon  obedi- 
ence to  the  commandments  ;  for  to  keep  the  command- 
ments is  to  love  the  Lord  and  to  believe  in  Him.  "  He 
that  hath  my  commandments  and  keepeth  them,  he  it  is 
that  loveth  me."  Reason  also  would  teach  us  that 
Divine  laws  must  be  the  embodiments  of  infinite  wisdom. 
Natural  laws  are  the  Divine  methods  of  operation  in  the 
material  world,  and  they  are  inconceivably  more  perfect 
in  their  action  than  the  wisest  human  laws.  Must  we  not 
believe  that  the  same,  if  not  a  much  greater,  perfection 
exists  in  the  Lord's  spiritual  laws?    Is  it  not  evident  that 


l8o      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


the  moral  law  existed  before  it  was  written  on  tables  of 
stone  ?  Was  it  not  always  wrong  to  steal  and  lie  and 
murder?  Was  man  under  no  obligations  to  love  the 
Lord  and  his  neighbor  before  the  two  great  command- 
ments were  given?  These  laws  are  written  in  man's 
spiritual  nature.  He  can  no  more  attain  heavenly  hap- 
piness without  living  according  to  them  than  the  tree  can 
attain  blossoms  and  fruit  without  acting  according  to  the 
laws  of  vegetable  life,  or  than  man  can  obtain  the  bless- 
ings of  health  without  obedience  to  the  laws  of  physical 
life.  They  were  given  in  a  formal  and  apparently  arbi- 
trary manner  because  man  had  forgotten  them,  and  be- 
cause it  was  essential  that  he  should  know  and  obey  them 
as  the  laws  of  God. 

Spiritual  laws,  then,  are  of  the  same  nature  as  natural 
laws  ;  they  operate  in  the  same  way  ;  they  are  enacted  in 
man's  spiritual  nature  ;  they  are  the  principles  of  his 
being  which  govern  all  his  activities  and  relations  to  the 
Lord  and  to  other  beings.  When  I  say  to  my  child,  You 
must  not  put  your  hand  into  the  fire,  and  if  you  do  you 
will  be  punished  with  terrible  pain,  I  merely  state  a  law 
which  exists  whether  I  state  it  or  not.  I  only  give  infor- 
mation of  a  truth  which  existed  before,  though  I  give  it 
in  the  form  of  a  command.  So  it  is  with  all  the  Divine 
commandments.  They  are  formal  statements  of  the  laws 
of  man's  spiritual  nature. 

But  it  may  be  said,  The  commandments  are  Divine 
laws.  Why  does  a  man  violate  the  laws  of  his  own  life 
by  disobedience  to  them  ?  Because  man  was  created  in 
the  image  and  likeness  of  the  Lord.  The  laws  of  the 
Divine  life  are  finitcd  in  him,  and  he  cannot  break  the 


Sm  AND  ITS  rUNISHMENT.  i8l 

least  commandment  without  doing  violence  to  his  own 
nature. 

Now  we  are  prepared  to  answer  our  first  question, 
What  is  sin  ?  It  is  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  our  own 
life.  The  Lord  created  us  for  a  definite  purpose,  and 
with  faculties  specifically  formed  and  adjusted  to  the  at- 
tainment of  that  purpose.  He  established  a  definite  and 
perfect  order  and  system  of  means  ;  and  when  we  step 
out  of  that  order  we  turn  aside  from  the  true  and  only 
path  that  leads  to  life.  We  do  the  same  thing  in  prin- 
ciple that  we  do  when  we  disobey  a  physical  law.  There 
are  physical,  social,  civil,  and  moral,  as  well  as  spiritual, 
sins.  All  natural,  as  well  as  spiritual,  laws  are  Divine, 
because  the  Lord  instituted  them.  They  are  His  laws. 
They  are  His  methods  of  attaining  His  ends.  The  planet 
obeys  His  law  while  it  keeps  to  its  own  orbit  ;  the  plant 
obeys  His  law  while  it  grows  and  brings  forth  fruit  after 
its  kind  ;  the  animal  obeys  His  law  while  it  follows  its 
own  instincts  ;  and  if  it  were  possible  for  a  plant  or  animal 
to  depart  from  its  order,  it  would  sin  against  the  Lord  as 
well  as  do  violence  to  the  laws  of  its  own  life.  So  when 
man  obeys  the  Divine  laws  he  obeys  the  laws  of  his  own 
being,  and  when  he  breaks  them  he  breaks  the  laws  of 
his  own  life.  Sin,  therefore,  consists  essentially  in  acting 
contrary  to  the  laws  of  spiritual  life,  as  they  originate  in 
the  Lord  and  are  embodied  in  man. 

All  the  forms  and  relations  and  methods  of  operation 
of  man's  spiritual  faculties  were  created  and  adapted  in 
the  most  perfect  m^mner  by  infinite  wisdom  for  the  attain- 
ment of  a  specific  end,  and  that  end  was  the  reception  of 
life  from  the  Lord,  with  its  blessedness.    Man  sins  by 

i6 


l82      PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

departing  from  that  order.  He  thinks  he  knows  what  is 
good  for  him  better  than  the  Lord  does.  It  seems  to  him 
that  the  true  way  to  attain  Hfe  is  to  love  himself  and  the 
world,  rather  than  the  Lord  and  the  neighbor.  He  loves 
the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  better 
than  that  which  grows  upon  the  tree  of  life.  Thus  he 
inverts  the  true  order  of  his  life  and  disturbs  the  harmo- 
nies of  all  his  spiritual  faculties,  abandons  the  methods  of 
infinite  wisdom,  and  violates  its  laws.    This  is  sin. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  answer  the  second  question, 
What  is  the  penalty  ?  It  must  be  death.  It  could  be 
nothing  else.  For  if  the  Lord  has  established  a  certain 
method  and  chain  of  instrumentalities  for  the  attainment 
of  life,  and  has  adjusted  them  to  that  end  with  infinite 
wisdom,  to  depart  from  that  order  must  be  to  fail  of  the 
end.  Death  follows  as  a  necessary  consequence  and  ac- 
cording to  a  universal  law,  as  it  does  in  the  physical  body 
or  in  a  plant.  But  the  penalty  of  sin  is  not  the  death  of 
the  body  ;  it  is  the  death  of  the  soul.  "  The  soul  that  sin- 
neth,  it  shall  die."  This  body  dies  by  the  violation  of 
physical  and  natural  laws  ;  the  soul  dies  by  the  violation 
of  spiritual  laws  ;  for  the  body  is  subject  to  physical  laws 
and  the  soul  is  subject  to  spiritual  laws.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence in  the  Bible,  there  are  no  grounds  in  reason  or  in 
the  analogies  of  nature,  for  the  belief  that  the  material 
body  would  have  been  immortal  if  man  had  never  sinned. 
The  decay  and  dissolution  of  the  body  is  not  the  death 
of  the  man  any  more  than  the  falling  of  the  leaf  or  the 
rejection  of  the  husk  and  chaff  is  the  death  of  the  plant. 
Man  is  not  a  material  being,  and  therefore  no  material 
changes  can  create  or  destroy  him. 


Sm  AND  ITS  PUNISHMENT. 


But  spiritual  death  is  not  the  disorganization  and  dis- 
persion of  tile  spiritual  substances  which  compose  man's 
spiritual  form.  It  is  rather  such  a  derangement  and  in- 
version of  his  spiritual  organism  that  it  is  no  longer  recep- 
tive of  spiritual  life  from  the  Lord.  The  lower  plane  of 
his  mind,  the  natural  and  sensual  degree,  has  become 
so  deranged  and  disproportionately  developed  that  the 
higher  planes  cannot  be  formed.  Man  is  a  barren  fig- 
tree,  which  bears  leaves  only.  His  faculties  are  so  ajar 
and  discordant  in  their  acti\'ities  that  their  movements 
cause  pain  instead  of  pleasure.  Like  an  instrument  out 
of  tune,  they  produce  discords  rather  than  harmonies  ; 
or  like  a  defective  chronometer,  they  do  not  move  in  the 
order  and  exact  measure  of  the  heavenly  principles  with 
which  they  were  made  to  accord,  and  consequently  the 
man  who  trusts  to  them  is  led  astray.  Life  is  not  bare 
existence  ;  death  is  not  the  extinction  of  being.  Life 
truly  considered  is  the  attainment  of  the  ends  of  our 
being,  the  development  of  the  spiritual  and  heavenly 
degrees  of  the  mind,  and  the  reception  of  life  from  the 
Lord,  in  those  degrees,  in  ever-increasing  fulness.  Death 
obstructs,  withers,  blasts  them.  Death  is  failure  in  the 
true  ends  of  life.  It  prevents  the  orderly  development  of 
the  higher  degrees  of  man's  spiritual  nature,  and  brings 
discord,  disease,  and  pain  into  all  those  that  remain. 
"  The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die."  The  penalty  of  sin 
is  spiritual  death  ;  sin  is  the  cause  and  death  the  inevi- 
table effect. 

Our  next  inquiry  is,  How  is  this  penalty  inflicted  ?  Is 
it  imposed  like  a  fine  ?  or  measured  out  like  the  penalties 
of  human  laws  ?    Is  it  arbitrarily  imposed,  as  so  many 


1 84      PI^ OGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

years  of  imprisonment  or  a  certain  amount  of  disabilities 
for  so  much  sin  ?  Is  it  imposed  or  remitted  at  the  good 
pleasure  of  the  Lord,  as  an  emperor  having  absolute 
power  determines  the  punishment  for  offences  against  his 
government,  and  inflicts  or  remits  it  according  to  his  will  ? 
The  Lord  answers  the  question,  "  The  wickedness  of  the 
wicked  shall  be  upon  him."  "In  his  trespass  that  he 
hath  trespassed,  and  in  his  sin  that  he  hath  sinned,  in 
them  shall  he  die."  Death  follows  sin  as  an  inevitable 
consequence.  Sin  is  death.  Man  is  not  punished  for 
sinning  as  the  thief  is  sent  to  the  penitentiary  for  steal- 
ing. But  he  is  punished  in  sinning.  As  spiritual  laws 
are  not  arbitrarily  imposed,  so  their  violation  cannot  be 
arbitrarily  punished.  The  Lord  does  not  bruise  a  man's 
flesh  and  break  his  bones  because  he  falls.  The  physical 
injury  follows  as  a  consequence  of  the  disobedience  of 
physical  law.  The  Lord  does  not  measure  out  in  an 
arbitrary  way  so  much  pain  for  so  much  physical  sin,  so 
many  twinges  of  gout  or  pangs  of  dyspepsia  for  so  much 
idleness  and  luxury.  He  does  not  send  a  fever  upon  one, 
a  consumption  on  another,  a  dropsy  or  paralysis  upon 
another,  as  a  punishment  for  the  violation  of  certain 
physiological  laws  ;  they  follow  as  legitimate  efiects  from 
natural  causes.  He  did  not  organize  the  body  for  pain, 
but  for  pleasure  ;  but  if  man  will  not  obey  the  laws  of  his 
organization,  the  end  is  missed,  and  pain  comes  as  a  con- 
sequence. So  the  Lord  did  not  organize  the  spiritual 
body  that  it  might  be  tormented  with  fears,  regrets,  dis- 
appointments, hatreds,  revenges,  and  remorse,  but  for 
the  reception  of  gratitude,  love,  joy,  peace,  blessedness, 
and  all  heavenly  delights.    But  if  man  will  not  obey  the 


SIN  AND  ITS  PUNISHMENT. 


185 


laws  of  his  spiritual  organization,  if  he  will  not  follow  the 
methods  which  infinite  wisdom  has  provided  as  the  only- 
way  of  attaining  these  spiritual  blessings,  he  must  fail  of 
receiving  them.  If  he  will  sin,  he  must  reap  the  fruits  of 
sinning.  There  is  no  escape  from  the  consequences.  If 
there  had  been  no  written  law,  if  the  Lord  had  never  said 
a  word  about  sin  or  its  punishment,  the  consequences 
would  have  been  the  same.  In  a  word,  all  Divine  laws, 
spiritual,  moral,  civil,  physical,  and  material,  are  self- 
executing.  There  is  no  difference  in  principle  in  their 
operation.  The  reward  and  the  punishment  inhere  in 
the  law,  and  when  we  act  according  to  it  the  blessing 
necessarily  follows,  and  when  we  break  it  the  curse  fol- 
lows.   Life  is  the  effect  of  obedience,  and  death  of  sin. 

Our  final  inquiry  is.  What  are  the  only  conditions  of 
escape  from  the  penalties  of  sin  ?  The  Lord  answers  the 
question,  "But  if  the  wicked  will  turn  from  all  his  sins 
that  he  hath  committed,  and  keep  all  my  statutes,  and  do 
that  which  is  lawful  and  right,  he  shall  surely  live,  he 
shall  not  die."  His  release  from  the  penalty,  then,  is 
effected  by  his  release  from  sin.  The  effect  ceases  with 
the  cause  which  produced  it.  When  a  man  begins  to  live 
he  ceases  to  die.  The  penalty  goes  with  the  sin.  They 
are  insepai'ably  bound  together,  like  pain  and  disease. 
With  a  return  to  health,  feebleness  and  pain  disappear. 
Put  an  instrument  in  perfect  tune  and  its  discords  cease. 
Darkness  disappears  when  the  sun  rises  ;  frost  vanishes 
in  the  presence  of  heat.  So  death  ceases  in  the  presence 
of  life.  This  result  follows  of  necessity,  if  the  relation 
between  sin  and  its  penalties  is  that  of  cause  and  effect. 
The  logic,  as  you  will  see,  is  complete,  and  there  is  no 

16* 


l86      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


escape  from  it,  if  you  admit  that  spiritual  and  natural 
laws  are  similar  in  their  operation.  If  the  Lord  follows 
an  immutable  order  and  method  in  the  administration  of 
His  spiritual  kingdom,  as  universal  nature  attests  that  He 
does  in  His  natural  kingdom,  '"The  soul  that  sinneth,  it 
shall  die."  There  are  no  exceptions,  no  remedies,  no 
offers  of  pardon,  no  conditions  of  escape  except  a  return 
to  life.  This  is  not  the  prevalent  opinion,  and  it  is 
worthy  of  our  most  careful  consideration. 

It  is  an  almost  universal  belief  in  the  Christian  Church 
that  the  Lord  punishes  in  an  arbitrary  manner,  and  that 
He  can  remit  the  penalty  of  sin  from  mere  mere)-,  and 
admit  whomsoever  He  chooses  into  heaven  ;  and  that  He 
is  only  prevented  from  exercising  universal  clemency  by 
some  considerations  of  justice  and  consistency.  The 
common  idea  is  that  the  Divine  pardon  is  similar  to  that 
exercised  by  kings  and  magistrates  in  this  world.  A  man 
has  broken  some  law  or  committed  some  offence  against 
the  king  or  ruler,  and  from  mercy  or  favor,  or  through 
the  intercession  of  friends,  he  is  pardoned, — that  is,  the 
penalty  is  remitted  ;  the  man  is  restored  to  favor,  and 
occupies  the  same  position  which  he  did  before  the  offence 
was  committed.  So  it  is  commonly  believed  that  by  the 
intercession  of  the  Saviour,  and  the  exercise  of  faith  by 
man,  the  Lord  will  remit  the  penalty  of  sin  and  take  him 
to  heaven.  The  whole  scheme  of  salvation,  according  to 
the  prevalent  theology,  is  based  upon  this  idea,  and  must 
stand  or  fall  with  it. 

This  error  seems  to  have  arisen  from  confounding  sin 
with  its  penalty,  while  they  are  as  distinct  as  pain  and 
disease,  as  sound  and  the  instrument  which  produces  it, 


SnV  AND  ITS  PUNISHMENT. 


187 


or,  universally,  as  cause  and  effect.  The  Lord  is  always, 
by  all  the  means  known  to  His  infinite  wisdom,  in  the 
unceasing  effort  to  pardon  our  sins.  But  He  never  remits 
the  penalty.  "  The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die,"  is  the 
immutable  and  irrevocable  sentence  pronounced  against 
sin,  and  the  law  is  in  as  full  force  now  as  it  ever  was. 
There  is  no  more  pardon  for  violating  a  spiritual  or  moral 
law  than  there  is  for  breaking  a  natural  law.  Every 
violation  of  every  law,  physical,  moral,  or  spiritual,  al- 
ways has  been,  is  now,  and  ever  will  be  punished.  If 
you  throw  yourself  into  the  fire  or  water,  or  eat  arsenic, 
or  fall  from  an  immense  height,  we  know  that  the  Lord 
will  not  interpose  in  answer  to  any  prayer  to  save  you 
from  burning  or  drowning,  from  the  effects  of  poison,  or 
from  broken  bones.  He  will  not  arrest  His  own  order 
and  violate  His  own  laws  for  the  sake  of  saving  man  from 
the  consequences  of  disobedience.  And  yet  this  is  what 
we  are  commonly  taught  the  Lord  does  in  His  spiritual 
kingdom,  and  it  is  generally  believed  that  our  salvation 
depends  upon  such  interposition.  But  that  is  contrary  to 
every  principle  of  the  Divine  government. 

There  can  be  no  greater  absurdity  than  that  a  Being 
of  infinite  wisdom  should  impose  an  arbitrary  law  upon 
His  children,  which  He  knew  they  would  break,  pro- 
nounce an  arbitrary  punishment,  and  when  they  broke 
the  law,  as  He  foresaw  they  would,  set  about  contriving 
a  plan  by  which  He  could  save  them  from  His  own  sen- 
tence. With  all  our  weakness  and  folly,  a  human  parent 
would  hardly  do  that.  What  would  you  say  of  a  legis- 
lator or  of  a  king  who  should  promulgate  a  law  which  he 
knew  would  be  broken,  and  then  devise  a  method  of 


t88      progress  in  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

averting  the  very  penalties  he  had  affixed  to  it?  Would 
you  not  say  that  the  law  ought  not  to  have  been  enacted, 
or  that  the  penalty  was  not  wisely  decreed  ?  Why  do  to- 
day what  you  must  seek  to  undo  to-morrow  or  ruin  your 
friends  ? 

Because  there  is  so  much  said  in  the  Bible  about  the 
Lord's  mercy  and  His  willingness  to  forgive  sin,  because 
He  came  down  to  earth  and  suffered  and  died  and  rose 
again  to  save  man  from  sin,  it  is  inferred  that  He  seeks  to 
set  aside  His  own  law  and  prevent  the  execution  of  its 
penalty.  But  He  declares  that  He  did  not  come  to  de- 
stroy the  law  or  the  prophets,  but  to  fulfil  ;  that  heaven 
and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  not  one  jot  or  tittle  shall 
pass  from  the  law  until  all  are  fulfilled.  He  did  not  come, 
therefore,  to  repeal  His  own  laws,  to  release  man  from  his 
obligations  to  keep  them,  or  to  save  him  from  the  penalty 
of  breaking  them. 

Two  great  errors  widely  prevail  upon  this  subject  :  first, 
that  the  Lord  came  into  the  world  to  save  man  from  the 
punishment  of  sin  ;  and,  secondly,  that  the  punishment  of 
sin  remains  after  the  sin  is  committed,  until  some  compen- 
sation is  made  for  it,  or  some  special  act  of  release  is  ob- 
tained. The  Lord  did  not  come  to  save  man  from  the 
punishment  of  sin  apart  from  the  sin  itself  This  would 
be  a  violation  of  His  own  laws  and  order.  The  Lord 
never  remits  the  penalty  of  sin  so  long  as  the  sin  remains. 
No  penalty  ever  was  remitted  or  ever  will  be  while  the 
sin  remains.  He  no  more  forgives  us  for  being  diseased 
si)iritually  than  He  does  for  being  diseased  naturally.  If 
I  break  any  of  the  commandments,  the  Lord  will  no  more 
forgive  mc  than  He  will  forgive  me  for  breaking  my 


SIN  AND  ITS  PUNISHMENT.  189 

bones.  The  two  cases  are  perfectly  analogous.  The 
punishment  follows  as  the  inevitable  effect  of  its  cause, 
the  sin,  and  it  must  remain  as  long  as  the  producing  cause 
remains.  If  we  can  settle  it  in  our  minds  as  a  great  and 
universal  law  of  the  Lord's  operation,  from  which  He 
ne\'er  deviates,  that  no  penalty  is  ever  remitted  and  that 
no  sin  goes  unpunished,  we  have  taken  one  great  step 
towards  the  solution  of  one  of  the  most  difficult  problems 
of  human  life. 

The  question  now  occurs,  If  the  Lord  never  remits  the 
penalty  of  sin,  how  are  we  to  escape  punishment  ?  Must 
we  suffer  forever?  No.  The  penalty  ceases  with  the 
sin.  It  would  be  just  as  impossible  for  the  punishment 
to  remain  after  man  had  ceased  to  be  a  sinner  as  it  would 
be  for  the  cold  of  winter  to  remain  during  the  heat  of 
summer,  or  the  pains  of  a  disease  to  fill  the  body  after 
the  disease  was  removed  and  the  body  restored  to  perfect 
health.  The  executors  of  human  laws  can  punish  after 
the  deed  is  committed  and  for  it,  but  the  Lord  never  does. 
The  penalty  and  the  sin  are  so  bound  together  that  they 
cannot  be  separated. 

But  if  I  broke  my  bones  yesterday,  shall  I  not  suffer 
for  it  to-day  ?  No,  you  suffer  to-day  because  they  are 
still  broken.  The  evil  is  not  yet  removed.  If  they  were 
restored  to  perfect  soundness,  you  would  not  sufTer  in  the 
least.  You  suffer  so  long  as  the  cause  which  produces 
the  pain  remains,  and  no  longer.  Sin  is  not  limited  to 
the  overt  act,  and  does  not  essentially  consist  in  it.  The 
sin  consists  in  that  evil  state  or  motive  which  causes  us  to 
commit  evil  deeds.  There  is  the  same  distinction  be- 
tween sin  and  sinful  deeds  that  there  is  between  a  tree  and 


190      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


its  fruits,  or  between  disease  and  its  symptoms  ;  between 
tlie  flushed  face,  the  rapid  pulse,  the  burning  thirst,  and 
the  wild  delirium,  and  the  fever  which  causes  them.  The 
sin  may  remain  and  burn  and  consume  and  be  the  con- 
tinual cause  of  sinful  acts.  We  are  not  punished  for 
doing  this  or  that  sinful  act.  The  Lord  does  not  recount 
our  evil  deeds,  or  keep  a  record  of  our  good  ones.  He 
does  not  keep  an  account  of  debt  and  credit  with  us. 
We  suffer  because  our  natures  are  not  in  harmony  with 
the  Divine  order  ;  not  because  they  were  discordant  yes- 
terday, but  because  they  are  discordant  now. 

Strictly  speaking,  therefore,  we  never  suffer  spiritually 
for  a  past  evil.  When  the  sinful  state  is  gone,  the  pain 
that  originated  in  it  goes  with  it.  The  most  fatal  miscon- 
ceptions of  the  Divine  character  have  arisen  from  the 
erroneous  belief  that  the  consequences  of  sin  remain  after 
the  sin  itself  is  removed.  And  many  of  the  difficulties 
which  good  men  have  found  in  reconciling  the  Divine 
benevolence  with  the  punishment  of  the  wicked  have 
their  origin  in  this  falsity.  It  is  a  terrible  injustice  to  the 
Lord  to  suppose  that  we  shall  be  eternally  punished  for  a 
sinful  act,  or  any  number  of  sinful  acts  committed  in  this 
life.  It  follows  as  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  law 
which  we  have  been  considering  that  we  shall  never  be 
punished  in  the  spiritual  world  for  what  we  do  in  this 
world.  We  shall  be  punished  only  for  what  we  do  there. 
When  a  man  passes  into  the  spiritual  world  through  the 
gate  of  death  the  Lord  does  not  say  to  him.  You  were  a 
great  sinner  while  you  lived  upon  the  earth,  and  now  I 
am  going  to  punish  you  for  it  forever.  If  the  wicked  go 
away  into  everlasting  punishment,  it  will  be  because  they 


SIN  AXD  ITS  PUNISHMENT.  191 

will  go  their  way  in  everlasting  opposition  to  the  Lord's 
way,  which  is  the  only  way  in  which  happiness  can  be 
found.  The  Lord  sends  His  angels  to  every  one,  saint 
as  well  as  sinner,  and  invites  them  all  to  heaven,  to  the 
enjoyments  of  eternal  life.  He  places  all  in  the  most 
favorable  conditions  to  disclose  their  true  characters.  If 
they  can  conform  to  the  order  of  heaven  in  will  and  in 
understanding,  in  thought  and  in  act,  they  will  enjoy 
the  blessings  of  such  conjunction  with  heaven  and  the 
Lord.  He  will  not  bring  up  old  scores  against  them. 
If  one  will  turn  from  his  sins,  ' '  all  his  transgressions  that 
he  hath  committed,  they  shall  not  be  mentioned  unto 
him  :  in  his  righteousness  that  he  hath  done  he  shall 
live. ' '  But  if  he  still  continues  to  love  himself  supremely, 
and  to  break  the  Divine  commandments,  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  are  the  laws  of  his  own  being  and  the  only 
ways  in  which  life  and  happiness  can  be  obtained,  he  must 
suffer  the  consequences.  The  Lord  cannot  prevent  it. 
"  The  wickedness  of  the  wicked  shall  be  upon  him." 

We  are  brought  to  the  inevitable  conclusion,  therefore, 
that  there  is  no  hope  for  the  sinner  but  in  being  cleansed 
from  his  sin.  So  long  as  he  is  a  sinner  he  is  not  in  har- 
mony with  the  Divine  order.  His  will  cannot  receive  the 
Divine  love  and  his  understanding  the  Divine  truth  in 
their  true  forms  and  order.  He  is  an  instrument  out  of 
tune,  and  his  activities  can  only  be  discords  ;  he  is  a  cor- 
rupt tree  which  cannot  bring  forth  good  fruit  ;  his  spir- 
itual body  is  diseased,  and  all  its  activities  are  death 
rather  than  life,  and  he  will  remain  spiritually  dead  until 
he  turns  from  all  his  sins,  which  cause  that  death.  When 
he  keeps  the  Lord's  statutes  and  does  that  which  is  lawful 


192      PI^OGRESS  nv  SPIRITUAL  KKOIVLEDGE. 

and  right,  he  will  surely  live  ;  he  will  not  die.  These  are 
the  conditions,  and  the  only  conditions,  on  which  we  can 
be  saved. 

My  whole  effort  has  been  directed  to  one  end,  and  that 
is  to  show  that  there  is  nothing  arbitrary  or  fluctuating  in 
the  punishment  of  sin.  Man  is  not  punished  for  sinning, 
but  in  sinning  ;  sin  and  suffering  are  intimately  connected, 
and  by  no  possibility  can  they  be  separated.  The  Divine 
laws  are  not  modelled  after  human  laws.  They  are  all 
self-executing.  They  are  never  annulled  or  repealed  or 
modified. 

This  truth  is  very  broad  and  comprehensive  in  its  ap- 
plications, and  will  reverse  many  of  the  opinions  and 
much  of  the  reasoning  upon  the  Lord's  relations  to  man. 
It  relieves  the  subject  of  human  salvation  from  all  its 
mysteries  and  complicated  technicalities,  and  makes  it  as 
plain  and  simple  as  the  curing  of  any  natural  disease,  and 
much  more  certain,  when  the  prescribed  remedies  are 
applied.  For  we  have  a  Spiritual  Physician  who  under- 
stands the  disease  perfectly,  and  who  never  fails  to  cure 
all  who  apply  to  Him  and  follow  His  prescriptions.  We 
must  direct  our  attention  to  the  sin,  to  the  disease,  and 
not  to  the  pain  it  causes.  We  must  learn  the  Lord's 
commandments,  that  we  may  know  what  the  laws  of  life 
are,  and  then  we  must  obey  them.  We  must  shun  what 
they  forbid.  We  must  do  it  now,  to-day,  every  day. 
The  Lord  will  assist  every  effort  we  make.  He  came 
into  this  world  by  assuming  a  human  nature,  that  He 
might  remove  every  obstacle  that  prevents  His  access  to 
us,  that  He  might  apply  the  remedy  directly  to  the  dis- 
ease, and  so  bring  His  life  down  to  us,  even  in  the  grave 


S/N  AND  ITS  PUXISHMENT. 


193 


of  our  sins,  that  He  might  become  our  resurrection  and 
life.  He  is  present  with  us  now  by  the  influences  of  His 
Holy  Spirit,  and  assists  every  struggle  for  release  from 
sin,  and  favors  every  aspiration  after  a  heavenly  life.  In- 
finite love,  wisdom,  and  power  are  on  our  side,  and  we 
have  only  to  remove  the  obstructions  to  their  application 
to  our  own  life  to  be  sure  of  escaping  every  torment  of 
sin  and  of  enjoying  every  heavenly  blessing  we  are 
capable  of  receiving.  Therefore,  ' '  cast  away  from  you 
all  your  transgressions,  whereby  ye  have  transgressed  ; 
and  make  you  a  new  heart  and  a  new  spirit :  for  why  will 
ye  die,  O  house  of  Israel  ?  For  I  have  no  pleasure  in  the 
death  of  him  that  dieth,  saith  the  Lord  God.  Wherefore 
turn  yourselves,  and  live  ye." 


I  n 


17 


THE  DIVINE  MERCY  IN  SUFFERING  AND  EVIL. 


"  But  the  very  hairs  of  your  head  are  all  7iumbered.'" — Mat- 
thew X.  30. 

"He  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and 
sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust." — Matthew  v.  45. 

T  N  the  first  of  these  passages  the  Lord  declares  the  uni- 
versality of  His  providential  care  ;  and  in  the  second, 
that  His  care  extends  to  the  e\'il  as  well  as  to  the  good,  to 
the  just  as  well  as  to  the  unjust.  By  the  sun  and  rain  are 
meant  His  love  and  wisdom.  He  here  assures  us,  there- 
fore, that  He  exercises  the  same  love  towards  the  evil 
that  He  does  towards  the  good,  and  that  He  employs 
His  Divine  wisdom  just  as  fully  for  the  benefit  of  the  un- 
just as  He  does  for  the  good  of  the  just. 

This  is  not  the  common  opinion,  and  it  is  not  appar- 
ently in  accordance  with  many  passages  of  the  Word,  in 
which  the  Lord  declares  His  hostility  to  the  wicked. 
But  there  is  no  real  contradiction  between  Divine  declara- 
tions. Some  express  the  real  truth  ;  others  the  apparent 
truth.  Persons  who  oppose  us  in  any  course  we  are  j^ur- 
suing  seem  to  be  our  enemies.  Our  children  often  think 
we  are  hostile  to  them  because  we  do  not  grant  all  their 
requests,  or  because  we  oppose  tliem  in  what  seems  to 
them  to  be  good.  The  real  truth  is  that  the  Lord's 
providence  is  over  all  men,  at  all  times,  in  all  states,  in 
temptation  and  sorrow  as  well  as  in  prosperity  and  joy, 
194 


THE  D/V/.VE  MERCY  I.V  SUFFER  I. VG  AND  EVIL.  195 


and  is  continually  exercised  for  their  good.  It  does  not 
seem  so  to  us,  because  the  Lord  knows  that  often  what  we 
think  to  be  for  our  good  is  hurtful  to  us.  Opposition  to 
that  seeming  good,  but  real  evil,  is,  therefore,  a  favor  to 
us.  The  Lord  regards  every  human  being  with  infinite 
love,  and  He  deals  with  every  human  being  with  infinite 
wisdom.  He  does  all  for  every  one,  in  every  part  of  His 
universe,  that  infinite  wisdom  and  infinite  power  can  do  ; 
for  the  evil  as  well  as  the  good,  for  the  ignorant  heathen 
as  well  as  the  most  intelligent  Christian,  for  the  sick  as 
fully  as  for  the  strong,  for  the  lowest  spirit  in  hell  as  well 
as  for  the  highest  angel  in  heaven.  But  what  He  can  do 
for  each  one  depends  upon  his  state,  upon  what  he  really 
needs.  Therefore  the  Divine  life  is  received  by  no  two 
in  the  same  manner. 

This  principle  is  clearly  exhibited  in  human  life. 
What  we  can  do  for  another,  supposing  we  have  the 
power,  depends  upon  what  he  needs.  If  he  is  rich,  we 
cannot  help  him  by  giving  him  money.  If  he  is  well, 
medicine  will  do  him  no  good.  If  he  has  an  abundance 
of  provisions,  it  will  not  help  him  to  give  him  bread.  If 
he  is  wiser  than  we,  our  advice  is  of  no  service.  But  if 
he  is  poor,  or  sick,  or  ignorant,  we  may  help  him  in 
those  particulars.  If  he  is  perverse,  we  may  help  him 
to  overcome  his  perversity.  If  he  is  starving  for  natural 
or  spiritual  food,  we  can  feed  him. 

But  what  the  Lord  can  do  for  us  is  not  only  limited  by 
our  necessities,  but  by  our  willingness  to  be  helped.  In 
all  the  Lord's  dealings  with  man  we  must  recognize  the 
immutable  truth  of  man's  freedom,  and  that  the  Lord 
always  respects  his  freedom.    It  is  not  the  Lord's  power, 


196      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

nor  the  Lord's  disposition,  nor  the  abundance  or  scarcity 
of  means,  nor  the  capacity  of  man's  nature  that  is  the 
limit  of  the  good  the  Lord  can  do  for  him.  It  is  man's 
freedom.  How  much  good  can  he  be  led,  in  freedom,  to 
receive?  Man's  freedom  in  this  respect  is  hke  a  vessel. 
It  is  the  capacity  of  a  vessel  and  not  the  ocean  that 
limits  the  amount  we  can  put  into  it.  We  often  wonder 
and  sometimes  complain  because  the  Lord  does  not  give 
us  a  more  abundant  and  richer  good.  When  we  see  the 
apparently  vast  inequalities  in  human  life,  and  the 
immense  amount  of  suffering  and  sorrow,  we  are  sur- 
prised that  the  Lord  does  not  interpose  in  behalf  of  the 
destitute  and  the  afflicted,  more  fully  equalize  human 
blessings,  and  bestow  His  bounty  with  a  more  liberal 
hand.  But  there  is  no  withholding  of  His  blessing.  He 
gives  to  every  being  the  largest  measure  of  the  highest 
good  he  can  be  induced  to  receive.  We  do  not  wonder 
that  the  sun  does  not  clothe  a  white  and  burning  bank 
of  sand  or  a  stagnant  pool  of  water  with  wheat  and 
vines.  The  heat  and  light  of  the  sun  fall  upon  all  places 
of  the  same  aspect  alike,  and  enter  and  vivify  what  there 
is  to  receive  them.  So  it  is  with  the  Divine  love.  Let 
us,  then,  settle  it  as  an  immutable  truth  that  the  Lord 
always  gives  us  all  the  good  He  can  lead  us  in  freedom  to 
receive. 

It  is  my  own  fault  if  I  suffer.  The  Lord  did  not  send 
this  affliction  upon  me.  I  brought  it  upon  myself  He 
tried  to  prevent  it,  but  could  not  without  doing  me  a 
greater  injury  than  the  one  I  have  received.  And  He  is 
even  now  trying  to  bring  out  of  this  suffering  all  the 
good  He  can. 


THE  DIVINE  MERCY  IN  SUFFERING  AND  EVIL.  197 


But  that  we  may  see  this  truth  in  a  clearer  Hght  let  us 
consider  more  particularly  the  manner  in  which  the  Lord 
sends  His  blessings  to  us  and  leads  us  to  good. 

The  Lord  never  provides  evil  or  punishment  or  suffer- 
ing for  any  one.  But  He  permits  them,  and  He  permits 
them  for  our  good.  The  Lord  has  arranged  everything 
in  the  universe  for  the  happiness  of  man,  and  He  has 
organized  man  himself  to  receive  delight  from  every- 
thing. So  long,  therefore,  as  man  lives  in  the  order  of  the 
Divine  providence  he  receives  nothing  but  good.  For 
example,  the  Lord  has  arranged  a  certain  order  for  man's 
physical  life,  concerning  food,  raiment,  sleep,  and  exer- 
cise. This  order  is  perfect.  It  is  from  the  Lord's  will. 
If  man  lives  according  to  it  he  receives  only  good.  It  is 
the  same  with  his  moral,  intellectual,  and  spiritual  life. 
But  if  man  violates  this  order  he  takes  himself  out  from 
its  harmonies,  and  so  far  cuts  himself  off  from  the  will  of 
the  Lord.  The  Lord  can  no  more  reach  him  in  that 
way.  He  separates  himself  from  good  and  comes  under 
another  law,  the  law  of  truth  which  condemns  him.  The 
order  which  was  provided  to  bring  the  soul  good  and 
only  good  now  acts  against  it  and  condemns  it,  because 
the  soul  does  not  move  with  it.  You  have  seen  a  com- 
plicated piece  of  machinery  driven  by  a  powerful  engine. 
Every  part  of  the  machine  was  arranged  according  to  a 
certain  order,  to  accomplish  a  certain  end.  Suppose  this 
order  and  every  part  of  the  machine  to  be  perfect. 
Every  wheel  and  spring  and  lever  plays  in  harmony,  and 
the  end,  which  is  the  good  sought,  is  accomplished.  But 
if  some  wheel  gets  out  of  place  or  some  spring  breaks, 
the  order  is  destroyed.    The  whole  force  that  propelled 

17* 


198      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 

the  machine  now  serves  to  break  it  up  and  destroy  it. 
The  force  of  the  engine  that  acted  only  for  good  now 
crushes,  now  acts  for  evil.  So  when  man  violates  the 
order  of  infinite  wisdom  embodied  in  his  soul,  that  order 
acts  against  him,  and  man  suffers  according  to  the  extent 
of  the  violation.  Now,  the  Lord  did  not  provide  this 
suffering  ;  it  is  not  from  His  will,  but  He  permits  it,  and 
He  permits  it  for  man's  good  in  the  state  in  which  he 
then  is. 

But  when  we  say  He  permits  evil  we  must  not  under- 
stand the  permission  in  the  sense  that  He  concurs  in  it, 
or  that  He  led  man  into  it,  or  sent  it  upon  him  in  any 
sense.  All  the  laws  of  the  Divine  order  are  good,  and 
when  man  by  disobedience  departs  from  the  Divine  order 
it  is  he  who  casts  himself  into  punishments  and  torments. 

The  case  is  the  same  as  with  the  parent  and  child.  A 
wise  parent  wills  only  the  good  of  his  child,  and  shows 
him  how  to  attain  the  good.  But  if  the  child  will  not 
obey  in  all  things  ;  if  he  desires  to  do  things  which  the 
parent  knows  are  not  for  his  good,  he  may  still  permit 
him  to  ha\'e  his  own  way  if  he  believes  that  forcible  re- 
straint would  do  the  child  more  harm  than  to  follow  his 
own  inclinations.  He  knows,  perhaps,  that  he  will  never 
be  satisfied  until  he  has  tasted  the  bitter  fruits  of  his  own 
choice.  Such  cases  come  within  the  experience  of  all 
parents.  Now,  the  parent  does  not  provide  the  false  and 
evil  course  for  his  child.  He  does  not  provide  the  suffer- 
ings which  are  caused  by  it.  He  does  not  will  it,  but  he 
permits  it,  because  to  restrain  the  child  by  force  would 
be  a  greater  evil. 

In  the  same  way  the  Lord  permits  us  to  disobey  His 


THE  DIVINE  MERCY  IN  SUFFERING  AND  EVIL.  199 

laws.  He  tells  us  the  consequences  ;  but  we  do  not  be- 
lieve Him,  and  we  cannot  be  made  to  believe  Him  until 
we  have  tried  it  for  ourselves.  He  permits  us  to  plunge 
into  evils  and  falsities,  and  to  bring  their  inevitable  pun- 
ishments upon  ourselves,  because  the  evil  is  not  so  great 
as  would  result  from  forcibly  restraining  us.  Thus  He 
permits  it  for  a  relatively  greater  good,  or  because  it  is 
the  least  evil  under  the  circumstances. 

But  the  Lord  does  not  leave  us  in  our  sins.  He  uses 
the  suffering  as  a  warning  to  go  no  farther  astray.  Every 
pain  we  suffer  is  a  voice  of  warning,  a  cry  that  we  are  in 
danger.  When  I  put  my  hand  too  near  the  fire  the 
smarting  cries  out  to  me,  "  You  are  violating  a  law  of 
your  physical  Hfe  !"  When  I  labor  too  long  and  too 
severely,  the  weariness  and  pain  declare  in  unmistakable 
language  that  I  am  in  danger  of  overtaxing  my  strength. 
When  I  violate  a  moral  or  spiritual  law,  conscience  lifts 
her  voice  and  inflicts  her  pangs.  The  Lord  permits  these 
things  for  our  good,  but  He  did  not  provide  them  for  the 
smart  and  pain.  The  Lord  did  not  provide  fire  to  burn 
us,  but  to  warm  us,  to  cook  our  food,  and  to  serve  a 
great  variety  of  useful  purposes.  The  Lord  did  not 
weave  a  fine  texture  of  nerves  throughout  the  whole 
human  body  for  the  purpose  of  filling  it  with  pain.  He 
formed  them  to  be  the  medium  of  communicating  a  de- 
light from  everything  we  touch.  He  did  not  create  the 
conscience  to  sting  and  madden  us,  but  to  be  a  light  to 
guide  us  and  an  approving  voice  to  comfort  and  sustain 
us  in  the  right.  He  did  not  make  the  head  to  ache  and 
the  whole  human  body  to  be  racked  with  pains,  to  be 
eaten  up  with  ulcers,  and  withered  with  palsies.  He 


200    -PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

formed  it  to  be  the  beautiful  home  of  the  soul  while  it 
tarries  in  the  world,  the  free  and  happy  instrument  with 
which  it  communicates  with  the  material  universe  and 
gains  the  materials  for  the  development  of  its  own  form 
and  life.  And  yet  He  permits  the  body  to  become  a 
most  foul,  repulsive,  and  hideous  thing. 

But  it  is  important  to  a  true  knowledge  of  the  Divine 
character  for  us  to  keep  in  mind  that  the  Lord  does  not 
permit  those  things  for  the  sake  of  punishment.  He 
permits  the  punishment  for  the  sake  of  preventing  evil 
and  of  leading  men  back  to  good.  All  those  passages  in 
the  Word  which  represent  the  Lord  as  hating  the  evil, 
burning  with  fury  towards  them,  and  inflicting  upon  them 
the  most  terrible  punishments,  express  not  genuine,  but 
apparent  truths.  They  state  things  as  they  appear  to 
man,  not  as  they  are  when  viewed  from  the  Lord.  You 
will  observe,  however,  that  this  view  gives  no  license  to 
man  to  commit  evil.  On  the  contrary,  it  shows  that  evil 
and  suffering  are  inseparably  connected.  The  Lord 
Himself  cannot  prevent  the  suffering.  "The  soul  that 
sinneth,  it  shall  die."  But  it  shows  the  Divine  character 
to  be  very  different  from  that  which  is  often  attributed  to 
the  Lord.  It  shows  how  suffering  and  sin  in  the  world 
are  perfectly  consistent  with  His  infinite  love  and  wisdom. 

There  is  another  reason  why  the  Lord  i)crmits  man  to 
act  out  his  evils  in  freedom,  and  that  is  that  he  may  see 
them  in  their  infernal  deformity  and  put  them  away. 
Man  must  exercise  the  same  freedom  in  putting  away  his 
evils  that  he  does  in  committing  them,  for  all  his  real  ac- 
tions are  voluntary.  The  natural  man  is  full  of  evils, 
which  must  be  put  away  before  he  can  be  regenerated. 


THE  DIVINE  MERCY  IN  SUFFERING  AND  EVIL.  201 


But  an  evil  cannot  be  resisted  until  it  is  seen,  and  it 
cannot  be  seen  until  it  appears.  We  ought  not  to  commit 
evil,  however,  that  it  may  appear.  We  ought  to  see  it 
in  its  first  motions  in  our  thoughts,  and  there  repress  and 
shun  it.  But  most  persons,  will  not  examine  themselves 
with  candor,  by  the  light  of  Divine  truth.  We  are  loath 
to  confess  even  to  ourselves  that  we  are  sinners  ;  and 
many  persons  will  not  do  it  until  their  evils  come  out  into 
act,  and  in  all  their  frightful  deformity  boldly  confront 
them.  And  even  then  they  shut  their  eyes  against  them 
until  they  are  compelled,  by  seeing  their  fatal  conse- 
quences, to  avoid  them.  Thus  the  Lord's  providence  is 
over  us  at  all  times,  and  He  makes  the  best  use  of  our  evils 
for  our  good.  What  He  cannot  prevent  without  a  greater 
injury  to  us  He  permits,  and  permits  that  He  may  make 
the  commission  itself  of  the  evil  an  aid  in  removing  it. 
He  is  merciful  even  where  it  is  impossible  to  remove 
the  evil,  as  is  the  case  with  all  who  are  evil  at  heart, 
after  they  have  passed  into  the  spiritual  world.  The 
punishments  they  inflict  upon  one  another  are  permit- 
ted for  the  purpose  of  repressing  their  evils  from  fear, 
and  thus  preventing  those  who  commit  the  sin  from  sink- 
ing into  still  greater  evils,  and  thus  incurring  a  severer 
punishment.  Thus  the  Lord  is  ever  seeking  our  good, 
and  never  fails  to  do  the  best  for  us  that  infinite  wisdom 
can  effect.  He  does  not  cease  to  love  us  and  work  for 
us  when  we  are  in  evil.  He  does  not  leave  us  to  our- 
selves when  we  wander  from  Him,  but,  like  the  good 
shepherd.  He  leaves  the  ninety  and  nine  that  are  safe  and 
goes  after  the  one  that  is  lost. 

We  must  not  infer,  however,  that  it  is  no  matter  what 


20  2      PROGRESS  AV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


we  do,  if  whatever  happens  is  best  for  us.  We  must  re- 
member that  it  is  best  under  the  circumstances,  taking 
all  things  into  consideration.  For  example,  suppose  you 
are  disappointed  in  the  attainment  of  some  good  upon 
which  you  had  set  your  heart,  or  you  are  afflicted  by 
some  terrible  bereavement.  The  Lord  is  doing  the  best 
He  can  for  you.  The  evils  you  suffer  are  to  prevent 
greater  evils.  Still,  it  is  not  as  well  for  you  as  it  would 
have  been  if  you  had  lived  a  better  and  more  orderly  life. 
You  are  sick,  perhaps,  and  suffer  much  pain.  Your 
sickness  is  not  sent  upon  you  by  the  Lord.  It  has  come 
from  the  violation  of  some  physical  law,  and,  though 
your  suffering  is  best  under  the  circumstances,  your  con- 
dition might  have  been  better  if  you  had  not  disobeyed 
the  laws  of  your  physical  life.  It  is  best  for  the  wicked  in 
the  sjjiritual  world  to  be  restrained  from  greater  sin  and 
greater  misery  by  punishment  ;  but  it  would  have  been 
far  better  for  them  if  they  had  repented  and  shunned 
their  evils  as  sins  against  God  in  this  world  ;  for  then 
they  would  be  angels  in  heaven,  and  they  would  be  en- 
tering into  the  enjoyment  of  all  hea\  enly  delights. 

There  is  also  one  important  principle  of  compensation 
for  our  natural  sufferings  which  no  finite  mind  can  ever 
fully  estimate.  A  natural  evil  may  be  permitted  and  used 
by  the  Divine  Providence  to  effect  a  spiritual  good.  Man 
has  a  twofold  nature,  and  suffering  and  disappointment  in 
one  degree  or  plane  of  his  mind  may  be  overruled  for  his 
greater  good  in  another.  We  see  some  persons  who  seem 
to  be  always  in  affliction.  Nothing  that  they  touch  seems 
to  j)rosper.  They  never  succeed  in  business  ;  if  they  run 
for  office  they  are  sure  to  be  defeated  ;  if  they  engage  in 


■IIIE  DIVINE  MERCY  IN  SUFFERING  AND  EVIL.  203 

aa  enterj^rise  they  fail  ;  they  always  meet  with  what  we 
call  accidents,  and  everything  seems  to  go  wrong.  Now, 
out  of  this  apparent  misfortune  there  may  be  educed  a 
much  greater  spiritual  and  eternal  good  than  could  have 
been  gained  by  the  greatest  temporal  prosperity.  What, 
therefore,  seems  to  us  misfortune  may  really  be  the 
greatest  good  fortune.  The  man  who  suffers  these  things 
may  get  more  real  good  out  of  them  than  his  neighbor, 
who  succeeds  in  everything  he  puts  his  hand  to,  can  get 
from  his  prosperity.  A  natural  loss  may  contribute  to  a 
great  spiritual  gain.  In  this  way  there  are  compensations 
for  natural  evils,  whose  value  we  can  never  estimate,  and 
which  may  immeasurably  outweigh  the  ills.  One  thing  is 
certain  :  the  Lord  permits  them  for  a  good  end,  and  with 
our  co-operation  He  will  bring  good  out  of  them,  all  the 
good  that  is  possible  to  infinite  wisdom  and  power. 

What  a  cheerful  view  does  this  truth  give  us  of  life  ! 
With  what  a  merciful  and  loving  tenderness  does  it  invest 
our  Heavenly  Father  !  How  the  disappointed  hopes,  the 
ignorance,  the  failures,  the  bereavements,  the  sufferings 
and  sorrows  of  poor,  erring  humanity,  change  their  re- 
pulsive aspect  !  How  is  all  that  we  have  called  unfortu- 
nate, and  mourned  over  in  our  own  lives,  brightened  and 
changed  into  new  forms  of  beauty  and  good  by  it  !  Let 
us  try  to  bring  home  the  blessed  truth  to  our  own  souls 
as  an  undoubted  reality.  Our  very  hairs  are  numbered. 
The  Lord  does  not  turn  away  His  face  from  us  because 
we  turn  our  faces  from  Him.  If  we  are  spiritually  naked 
and  hungry,  sick  and  in  prison,  He  will  no  more  leave  us 
than  a  devoted  parent  would  leave  a  beloved  child  when 
he  was  sick  and  in  affliction.    If  possible,  the  Lord  then 


204      FKOGRESS  AV  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


regards  us  with  more  tenderness  than  at  other  times  ; 
and,  though  He  cannot  communicate  to  us  any  good  but 
what  He  can  lead  us  voluntarily  to  receive,  He  watches 
over  us  every  moment  of  our  lives,  and  seizes  upon  the 
slightest  opportunity,  and  makes  the  most  of  every  pos- 
sible occasion  to  soften  the  hardness  of  our  nature,  to 
bend  our  wills  towards  a  true  order,  to  lead  us  back  into 
harmony  with  Him.  Why  are  we  so  slow  and  reluctant 
to  believe  in  His  mercy  and  loving-kindness  ?  Why  are 
we  so  prone  to  doubt  His  care  for  us,  and  to  make  our 
natural  prosperity  the  measure  of  His  good-will  towards 
us  ?  When  we  suffer,  why  will  we  accuse  the  Lord  of 
unkindness  or  want  of  care,  when  the  only  reason  the 
Lord  does  not  gi\'c  us  a  greater  measure  of  good  is  our 
unwillingness  to  receive  it  ?  Why  do  we  not  commit  our 
way  unto  Him,  and  trust  Him,  and  let  Him  lead  us  in  the 
paths  of  righteousness,  beside  the  still  waters,  and  restore 
our  souls  to  their  true  order,  harmony,  and  peace?  Oh, 
you  who  go  trembling  with  many  a  fear,  whose  souls  are 
chafed  and  worried  and  stung  with  many  an  anxious  care, 
whose  hearts  are  heavy  with  many  a  burden  of  grief,  why 
will  you  not  accept  the  blessed  invitation,  "Come  unto 
me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  hea\'y  laden,  ...  for  I  am 
meek  and  lowly  in  heart  ;  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto 
your  souls"  ?  Come,  the  Lord  will  take  you  by  the  hand. 
He  will  help  you  at  every  step.  He  will  strengthen  your 
weakness  of  will  and  act.  He  will  lead  you  as  gently  as 
love  itself  He  will  reward  every  right  effort.  Come  up 
from  the  corruption  of  the  grave  and  the  coldness  and  dark- 
ness of  death  into  the  light  and  order  and  peace  of  heaven. 
Come,  all  things  are  ready.    Come,  and  begin  to  live. 


THE  ATONEMENT:   WHO  MADE  IT,  WHY 
IT  WAS  NECESSARY,  HOW  IT 
WAS  EFFECTED. 


For  he  said,  Surely  (hey  are  my  people,  children  that  will 
not  lie :  so  he  was  their  Saviour. 

"  In  all  their  affliction  he  was  afflicted,  and  the  Angel  of  his 
presence  saved  them :  in  his  love  and  in  his  pity  he  redeemed 
them  ;  and  he  bare  them,  and  carried  them  all  the  days  of  old.'''' 
— Isaiah  Ixiii.  8,  9. 

'T'HE  subject  to  which  I  invite  your  attention  is  justly 


regarded  by  the  whole  Christian  world  as  vital  to 
man's  salvation.  Our  eternal  happiness  or  misery  rests 
upon  it.  We  all  know  that  we  are  sinners  ;  that  we  have 
rebelled  against  the  government  of  the  King  of  kings  and 
Lord  of  lords.  We  are  under  condemnation.  We  con- 
fess it  by  our  fears.  We  are  already  suffering  the  pen- 
alties of  our  disobedience.  We  feel  it  in  the  weariness  of 
servitude,  in  the  weakness  and  pain  of  disease,  in  cares, 
anxieties,  disappointments,  in  yearning  for  a  freedom  we 
do  not  possess,  in  aspirations  for  a  good  we  cannot  gain, 
and  in  the  sharp  thrusts  of  conscience  for  violated  law. 
The  whole  earth  is  a  prison  whose  walls  are  not  stone  or 
iron,  but  ignorance  and  error  and  evil  ;  and  multitudes 
fear  that  they  will  be  released  from  this  prison-house  only 
to  be  plunged  into  a  more  terrible  one.  Whether  you 
believe  the  Bible  or  not,  whether  you  accept  the  common 
doctrine  of  sin  and  punishment  or  not,  you  know  that 


2o6      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


you  suffer  ;  you  know  that  your  affections,  your  under- 
standings, and  your  lives  are  not  in  the  harmonies  of 
Divine  order.  You  know  that  you  are  weak  and  bhnd, 
that  your  heart  is  full  of  fears  and  questions  about  your 
relations  to  the  Lord  and  your  chances  for  future  happi- 
ness. 

The  subject  we  are  to  consider  is,  How  the  differences 
between  us  and  the  Lord  are  to  be  harmonized  ;  how  His 
claim  upon  us  is  to  be  adjusted.  If  it  is  a  punishment 
which  must  be  inflicted,  who  is  to  bear  it  ?  If  it  is  a  debt 
which  must  be  paid,  who  will  pay  it  ?  If  it  is  a  case  of 
spiritual  disease,  weakness,  and  death,  which  have  come 
upon  man  as  a  consequence  of  violating  the  laws  of  spir- 
itual life,  how  is  he  to  be  restored  to  spiritual  soundness 
and  health,  so  that  his  whole  nature  shall  act  in  harmony 
with  the  Divine  nature  ?  Put  the  question  as  you  will,  it 
touches  every  vital  interest  and  immortal  hojje  of  man. 
It  is  the  essential  question  between  man  and  the  Lord, 
the  root  principle  on  which  all  other  questions  depend. 

There  have  been  many  opinions  and  theories  upon  this 
subject,  some  of  which  have  become  obsolete.  But  there 
is  still  a  great  variety  of  opinion,  and  will  continue  to  be 
until  men  understand  how  we  are  related  to  the  Lord, 
until  we  regard  the  subject  from  central  and  inmiutable 
principles.  This  is  the  only  point  of  view  from  which  it 
can  be  understood.  This  is,  therefore,  the  fir.st  question 
to  which  I  ask  your  attention.  How  do  we  stand  related 
to  the  Lord  ?  The  answer  is  so  important  to  our  under- 
standing of  the  present  subject  that  we  shall  consider  it 
with  care,  at  the  risk  of  restating  some  principles  already 
familiar. 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


207 


According  to  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church,  the 
primary  and  essential  relation  between  man  and  the  Lord, 
which  gives  character  to  all  other  relations,  is  that  of  the 
recipient  of  life  to  the  Source  and  Giver  of  life.  Every 
human  being  is  the  direct  recipient  of  life  from  the  Lord,  at 
every  moment  of  his  existence,  just  as  truly  and  absolutely 
as  the  first  man  was  at  the  first  moment  of  his  existence. 
The  Lord  now  breathes  into  our  nostrils  the  breath  of  all 
the  life  we  have,  in  every  particular  and  degree  of  our  ex- 
istence. "  In  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being, ' ' 
is  a  plain  and  exact  statement  of  the  truth.  ' '  Without  me 
ye  can  do  nothing. ' '  The  amount  and  quality  of  our  life  is 
measured  by  the  degree  of  reception.  This  is  the  essen- 
tial relation  which  we  sustain  to  the  Lord.  It  is  described 
in  many  ways,  but  this  is  the  essence  of  them  all. 

It  is  necessary  to  recall  another  point.  While  every 
particle  of  life  is  constantly  given,  the  current  which 
comes  to  us  from  within  flows  by  such  secret  channels 
that  we  are  wholly  unconscious  of  it,  and  consequently 
we  are  in  as  much  freedom  to  act  as  we  should  be  if  it 
were  underived  and  absolutely  our  own.  Though  we  are 
only  recipients  of  life,  we  are  as  free  to  act  as  the  Lord 
Himself  Though  we  are  as  dependent  upon  the  inflow- 
ing power  for  every  movement  of  mind  and  body  as  a 
machine  is  for  the  movement  of  its  wheels  and  springs, 
yet  we  are  not  machines.  We  have  power  to  act  in  one 
way  or  in  a  different  one.  We  can  close  our  minds  to 
the  truth  as  we  can  our  eyes  to  the  light.  We  can  re- 
ceive or  reject,  act  according  to  the  commandments  or 
contrary  to  them.  But  we  possess  this  power  only  be- 
cause the  Lord  constantly  gives  it  to  us. 


2o8      F-ROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


The  Lord  created  man  to  receive  life  from  Him  in  its 
true  forms  and  harmonies.  He  made  him  in  His  own 
image  and  likeness  that  man  might  receive  and  possess 
in  a  derivative  and  finite  form  all  those  qualities  which 
exist  in  the  Lord  in  their  infinite  perfections.  So  long  as 
man  received  life  from  the  Lord  in  its  true  order  and  in 
its  unperverted  forms,  his  whole  nature  was  in  perfect 
accord  with  the  Divine  nature  ;  all  his  activities  flowed  in 
the  currents  of  the  Divine  harmonies.  Man's  life  was  in 
perfect  unison  with  the  Lord's  life.  Man  and  the  Lord 
were  at  one  with  each  other.  They  were  like  two  instru- 
ments in  perfect  tune.  This  is  the  normal,  orderly  rela- 
tion of  man  to  the  Lord. 

Now,  if  I  have  succeeded  in  conveying  the  idea  I  in- 
tend, it  will  be  seen  that  man's  relation  to  the  Lord  is 
not  essentially  a  legal  one.  It  is  not  the  relation  of  a 
citizen  to  the  state  or  of  a  debtor  to  a  creditor.  It  is  not 
in  any  sense  an  arbitrary  or  factitious  one.  It  is  more 
like  the  relation  of  a  plant  to  the  sun,  or  of  the  body 
to  the  soul.  It  is  a  relation  which  inheres  in  and  grows 
out  of  the  essential  nature  of  the  beings  related.  Arbi- 
trary human  relations  may  be  used,  for  the  want  of  better 
means,  to  express  those  which  inhere  in  the  essential 
nature  of  man  and  of  the  Lord.  We  may  call  God  a 
King,  a  supreme  Ruler,  an  almighty  Sovereign,  who  acts 
according  to  His  own  pleasure,  but  we  must  take  these 
words  in  their  highest  and  not  in  their  lowest  sense.  We 
must  think  of  a  king  or  sovereign  from  infinite  love  and 
wisdom,  and  from  our  highest  conceptions  of  love  and 
wisdom,  and  not  measure  the  Divine  character  by  an 
earthly  despot.    The  Lord  is  our  Father  ;  but  we  must 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


209 


not  bring  Him  down  to  the  level  of  human  parents  ;  we 
must  exalt  every  fatherly  quality  to  the  highest  possibili- 
ties of  our  conception.  These  natural  relations  are  steps 
to  assist  our  minds  to  rise  up  towards  the  Lord  and  gain 
some  true  conceptions  of  Him,  and  not  weights  to  hold 
us  down  to  the  earth.  Whatever  corresponding  human 
relations  we  use  to  express  our  relations  to  the  Lord,  we 
must  always  take  them  in  their  highest  sense.  They  are 
at  the  best  but  fingers  which  point  in  the  direction  in 
which  we  are  to  look  and  go. 

Such  being  our  relations  to  the  Lord,  we  cannot  con- 
ceive that  He  would  subject  man  to  the  control  of  any 
arbitrary  law,  or  that  He  would  attach  any  arbitrary  pen- 
alty to  the  violation  of  any  law.  The  Lord  is  related  to 
man  as  a  spiritual  being  in  the  same  way  that  He  is  re- 
lated to  him  as  a  physical  being.  Every  one  can  see  the 
absurdity  of  attempting  to  subject  man's  physical  nature 
to  any  arbitrary  laws.  Would  it  not  be  equally  absurd 
to  impose  any  arbitrary  rules  for  the  government  of  his 
spiritual  nature  ?  It  is  contrary  to  reason,  contrary  to 
all  known  methods  of  Divine  working.  It  is  leaving 
methods  which  accord  with  the  constitution  and  nature 
of  things  for  those  which  have  no  necessary  relation  to 
them  ;  it  is  abandoning  law  and  following  caprice. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  there  are  many 
statements  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures  which  seem  to  favor 
the  idea  that  the  Lord  does  govern  in  an  arbitrary  way, 
and  exacts  obedience  because  He  has  the  right  to  demand 
it  and  the  power  to  enforce  it.  But  it  can  easily  be  shown 
that  the  commandments  and  prohibitions  are  only  arbi- 
trary in  form,  to  adapt  them  to  the  condition  of  men.  A 
o  18*1 


2IO      PROGRESS  IM  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

law  of  life  may  be  stated  as  a  principle,  as  a  warning,  as 
a  command.  The  consequences  of  its  violation  may  be 
pointed  out  or  not,  according  to  circumstances  and  the 
conditions  of  those  who  are  the  subjects  of  the  law, 
while  the  law  itself  is  inherent  and  essential.  This  prin- 
ciple is  so  necessary  to  a  correct  understanding  of  our 
relations  to  the  Lord,  that  it  is  worthy  of  illustration. 

An  engineer  who  understands  his  business  perfectly  is 
called  upon  to  build  a  bridge  across  the  chasm  below  the 
Niagara  Falls.  He  knows  the  force  of  gravity,  he  is  ac- 
quainted with  the  strength  of  the  materials  he  is  to  use, 
he  knows  what  form  is  most  conducive  to  strength,  and 
what  relations  the  parts  should  sustain  to  one  another, 
and  to  what  strain  the  structure  will  be  subjected,  and  he 
gives  his  orders  accordingly.  Put  stone  here,  iron  there. 
He  gives  specific  directions  about  the  form  of  the  parts 
and  the  way  they  are  to  be  joined  together.  His  direc- 
tions are  issued  in  an  arbitrary  form,  as  though  his  will 
were  law  and  he  were  a  despot.  But  there  is  nothing 
arbitrary  in  his  directions.  They  are  based  on  immu- 
table law,  to  which  he  must  conform  or  his  structure  will 
prove  a  failure  and  become  the  cause  of  sorrow  and 
suffering  and  death.  So  all  the  precepts,  prohibitions, 
statutes,  and  commandments  contained  in  the  Bible,  in 
whate\  er  form  given,  are  based  upon  the  immutable  laws 
of  the  Divine  wisdom,  upon  the  essential  principles  of 
man's  nature,  according  to  which  his  life  unfolds  and  he 
attains  the  end  of  his  being. 

The  true  relation  between  the  Lord  and  man  is  often 
expressed  in  specific  terms.  He  is  the  light  of  the 
world  ;  He  is  the  life  of  men.    "  In  him  we  live,  and 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


211 


move,  and  have  our  being  ;"  "I  am  the  vine,"  He  says 
to  His  disciples,  "ye  are  the  branches."  In  this  last 
expression  we  have  a  perfect  example  of  our  relation  to 
the  Lord.  We  are  related  to  Him  as  the  branch  to  the 
vine.  There  is  nothing  arbitrary  about  it.  The  branch 
grows  out  of  the  vine,  and  partakes  of  its  nature.  It 
gets  all  its  life  from  it.  And  the  amount  of  the  life  it  re- 
ceives depends  upon  its  connection  with  it.  If  that  con- 
nection is  interrupted  or  broken,  or  if  the  organism  of 
the  branch  is  in  any  way  deranged,  it  cannot  bear 
fruit. 

If  we  suppose  that  the  branch  has  the  power  of 
closing  its  doors  against  the  life  of  the  vine,  which  comes 
to  it  in  the  currents  of  its  juices,  or  of  so  changing  their 
nature  that  they  produce  poison  instead  of  grapes,  we 
shall  have  a  perfect  illustration  of  how  man  as  a  sinner  is 
related  to  the  Lord. 

By  sinning,  which  is  violating  the  laws  of  his  life,  man 
has  interrupted  the  inflow  of  life  from  the  Lord  into  his 
soul,  in  its  full  and  normal  currents,  and  so  perverted 
what  does  reach  him  that  it  is  changed  into  the  poison  of 
evil,  and  he  does  not  bear  the  fruits  of  heavenly  joy  and 
peace. 

The  question  is.  How  is  the  branch  to  be  restored  to 
its  union  with  the  vine  ?  How  is  the  recipient  of  life  to 
become  readjusted  to  the  source  of  life,  so  that  all  its 
channels  shall  be  opened  and  filled  with  life  ?  They  can- 
not open  themselves  ;  they  cannot  be  forced  open  by  any 
violence  ;  one  branch  cannot  help  another  in  this  ex- 
tremity. It  is  not  a  question  of  punishment  for  having 
broken  a  law.    That  does  not  enter  into  the  considera- 


212      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 

tion  of  the  subject.  It  is  a  question  of  reunion  of  the 
branch  with  the  vine.  It  might  be  bruised  to  a  jelly, 
or  ground  to  powder  and  cast  into  the  fire  ;  that  would 
not  tend  to  its  reunion  with  the  vine.  On  the  contrarj% 
it  would  make  reunion  impossible.  It  is  not  a  question 
of  debt.  Suppose  it  was.  The  branch  is  indebted  to 
the  \"ine  for  the  grapes  it  ought  to  have  borne.  Destroy- 
ing it  will  not  pay  the  debt.  And  if  the  debt  were  paid, 
it  would  not  have  the  slightest  influence  in  restoring  the 
union  between  the  branch  and  the  vine.  Suppose  the  pen- 
alty for  man's  sins  were  paid  by  the  sufieringof  another 
person  ;  it  would  not  restore  man  to  conjunction  with  the 
Lord  ;  it  would  not  have  the  slightest  tendency  to  do  it. 
The  gulf  between  him  and  the  Source  of  life  would  re- 
main as  great  as  it  was  before.  The  breach  has  not  been 
healed,  because  it  was  not  an  arbitrary  but  a  real  one. 
The  healing  is  not  a  vicarious  work.  If  the  laws  which 
man  had  broken  were  arbitrar}',  they  might  be  annulled  or 
the  penalty  remitted  at  the  good  pleasure  of  the  legislator, 
or  for  any  considerations  he  might  designate.  But  as 
they  are  laws  of  man's  life,  the  very  principles  on  which 
his  existence  is  based,  they  cannot  be  annulled  without 
destroying  him.  No  being  Divine  or  human  can  keep  the 
laws  of  life  for  him,  or  suffer  for  their  violation  for  him. 

As  we  have  seen,  spiritual  laws  are  of  the  same  nature 
as  physical  laws,  and  we  know  perfectly  well  that  one 
person  cannot  keep  these  for  another.  It  is  a  law  en- 
acted by  the  Lord  Himself  and  written  in  every  member 
of  the  material  body,  that  man  must  be  constantly  sup- 
plied with  a  proper  amount  of  wholesome  food.  The 
penalty  of  continued  disobedience  is  death.    Can  one 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


213 


person  keep  this  law  for  another  ?  Can  one  man  eat  for 
another?  Can  the  best  friend  on  earth  or  in  heaven 
save  another  from  starvation  by  eating  for  him  ?  Every 
child  knows  that  would  be  impossible.  A  law  of  life 
which  inheres  in  the  essential  nature  of  man  cannot  be 
vicariously  kept,  nor  can  disobedience  to  it  be  atoned  by 
vicarious  punishment.  A  debt  can  be  paid  by  another, 
because  the  relation  of  debtor  and  creditor  is  not  a  vital 
one.  It  has  no  organic  connection  with  man.  An  arbi- 
trary law  may  be  broken  and  no  one  suffer  for  it  ;  but  a 
vital  law  cannot,  and  the  one  who  breaks  it  must  suffer. 

According  to  the  same  principle,  a  moral  quality  can- 
not be  transferred  from  one  person  to  another.  Neither 
goodness  nor  wickedness  are  transferable  commodities. 
"The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die.  The  righteousness 
of  the  righteous  shall  be  upon  him,  and  the  wickedness 
of  the  wicked  shall  be  upon  him. ' '  Vicarious  virtue,  or 
vicarious  guilt,  or  vicarious  reward  or  punishment,  is  not 
possible.  It  is  contrary  to  the  nature  of  God,  and  the 
nature  of  man.  It  is  just  as  impossible  in  the  spiritual 
plane  of  man's  being  as  it  is  in  the  physical. 

Now  we  have  cleared  away  the  obstructions  and  have 
gained  the  right  point  of  view  to  understand  Who  made 
the  atonement,  Why  it  was  necessary,  and  How  it  was 
made. 

Who  made  the  Atonement?  The  Lord's  answer  is 
that  He  made  it.  He  is  the  only  being  who  could  make 
it.  And  He  affirms  and  reaffirms  in  the  most  emphatic 
manner  that  He  is  the  only  Redeemer  and  Saviour.  Put 
out  of  your  thought,  if  you  can,  every  idea  which  dis- 
turbs or  weakens  the  distinct  conception  that  God  is  one 


214     PJiOGKESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


in  essence  and  person.  Think  that  there  is  only  one 
Being  who  is  God.  Call  that  Being  by  whatever  name 
you  please,  but  keep  before  your  mind's  eye  only  one 
Person,  one  Being.  Call  Him  Jehovah,  God,  Lord, 
Father,  Son,  Jesus  Christ ;  but  think  of  one  Being,  one 
Divine  Person.  That  Being  created  man.  He  is  the 
source  from  which  man  constantly  derives  his  life.  He 
alone  can  give  life  and  restore  man  to  such  union  vvitli  Him 
that  he  can  receive  it  in  larger  measures  and  higher  forms. 

It  may  help  us  to  get  this  distinct  idea  of  the  unity  of 
God  to  hear  what  He  says  about  Himself  "  Surely  God 
is  in  thee  ;  and  there  is  none  else,  there  is  no  God. 
Verily  thou  art  a  God  that  hidest  thyself,  O  God  of 
Israel,  the  Saviour."  (Isa.  xlv.  14,  15.)  "  Have  not  I 
Jehovah  ?  and  there  is  no  God  else  beside  me  ;  a  just 
God  and  a  Saviour  ;  there  is  none  beside  me."  (Isa. 
xlv.  21.)  "  I,  even  I,  am  Jehovah  ;  and  beside  me  there 
is  no  saviour."  (Isa.  xliii.  11.)  "I  am  Jehovah  thy 
God,  .  .  .  and  thou  shalt  know  no  God  but  me  :  for 
there  is  no  saviour  beside  me."  (Hosea  xiii.  4.)  "As 
for  our  redeemer,  Jehovah  of  hosts  is  his  name."  (Isa. 
xlvii.  4.)  "Jehovah,  my  strength,  and  my  redeemer." 
(Ps.  xix.  14.)  "  Thus  saith  Jehovah,  thy  redeemer,  .  .  . 
I  am  Jehovah  that  makcth  all  things  ;  tliat  stretchcth 
forth  the  heavens  alone  ;  that  spreadeth  abroad  the  earth 
by  myself"  (Isa.  xliv.  24.)  There  are  many  other  pas- 
sages to  the  same  effect. 

If  words  liavc  any  meaning,  these  mean  that  Jeho\  ah 
is  the  Redeemer  and  Sa\  iour,  and  that  there  is  no  other 
being  who  is  in  any  way  a  party  or  sharer  in  the  work. 
Jesus  Christ  was  not  another  being.    He  was  Jehovah, 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


clothed  with  a  human  mind  and  a  human  nature.  He 
was  not  changed  into  that  nature.  He  did  not  divest 
Himself  of  any  power  or  attribute  by  His  descent  into 
this  world  in  a  personal  form.  He  was  the  same  omnip- 
otent, omniscient,  omnipresent  Being  ;  He  did  not  cease 
to  be  the  Alpha,  the  beginning,  the  first,  when  He  be- 
came the  Omega,  the  ending,  the  last.  He  simply  in- 
vested Himself  with  the  means  of  revealing  Himself 
immediately  to  men,  and  of  bringing  Himself  into  direct 
personal  contact  with  His  children  in  every  plane  and 
degree  of  the  creation.  As  earthly  sovereigns  sometimes 
disguise  themselves  as  peasants  and  common  citizens, 
assuming  their  manners  and  their  language,  that  they  may 
gain  the  means  of  relieving  their  ills  and  improving  their 
condition,  so  Jehovah  assumed  not  only  the  outward 
garb,  but  the  material  and  spiritual  organization  of  His 
children,  their  mind,  their  habits  of  thought  and  feeling, 
every  form  and  quality  which  constitutes  their  natures. 
In  this  way  He  assumed  their  weaknesses,  their  evil  ten- 
dencies ;  He  could  be  tempted  at  all  points  as  they  were  ; 
He  could  live  their  life  ;  He  could  feel  the  force  of  all 
their  struggles  and  trials  and  sufiferings,  come  into  a  per- 
sonal experience  of  every  illusion  and  every  sorrow,  feel 
the  sharpness  of  every  pang,  and  the  despair  and  agony 
of  every  lost  hope.  He  could  stand  where  dying  man 
stood  and  bring  Himself  into  close  and  conscious  rela- 
tions with  him  in  every  phase  of  his  being.  He  was  not 
thereby  changed  into  a  weak  and  dying  human  being,  as 
a  king  is  not  changed  into  a  peasant  by  assuming  his 
manners  and  dress. 

Now  we  have  before  our  minds,  in  distinct  and  per- 


2i6      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


sonal  form,  one  Divine  Being,  one  God,  the  only  God, 
adapting  Himself  to  all  human  conditions,  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest.  The  thought  is  not  divided.  It 
goes  straight  to  one  glorious  Person.  The  affections  are 
not  distracted.  They  rest  on  one  Being,  who  is  love  and 
wisdom  itself  There  is  no  remote,  indistinct,  awful  em- 
bodiment of  inflexible  justice  demanding  the  exact  pun- 
ishment stipulated  in  the  bond.  We  see  a  Father  with  a 
heart  of  infinite  tenderness  and  love.  Himself  coming  to 
the  rescue  of  His  lost  and  dying  children,  that  He  may 
bring  them  into  such  relations  with  Himself  as  the  source 
of  life  that  He  can  heal  all  their  diseases,  rectify  all  their 
perversities,  and  restore  them  to  union  with  Himself 

This  is  a  work  worthy  of  infinite  love  and  wisdom. 
The  idea  that  my  Creator,  my  Father,  my  God  did  not 
stand  aloof  in  stern  and  solitary  grandeyr,  but  came  to 
me,  His  lost  and  perishing  child,  took  upon  Himself  my 
nature,  my  mind,  my  affections,  my  flesh  and  blood  even, 
and  with  infinite  compassion  and  tenderness  opened  my 
eyes  to  see  Him,  unstopped  my  ears  to  hear  the  sweet 
words  of  comfort  and  hope,  the  winning  call  to  follow 
Him  to  heaven  and  eternal  rest, — this  idea  satisfies  my 
reason  and  fills  my  heart.  I  can  understand  that  infinite 
love  could  do  this.  It  satisfies  every  instinct  and  concep- 
tion of  the  parental  nature.  I  can  do  something  for  my 
children,  feeble  and  imperfect  as  my  love  is.  I  can  work 
for  them,  I  can  suffer  for  them,  I  can  bear  with  them,  I 
could  plunge  into  the  water  or  the  fire  to  rescue  them  ; 
and  I  can  understand  how  infinite  love  could  take  upon 
itself  our  nature,  polluted  as  it  is  by  sin,  and  exposed  to 
temptation  and  pain,  to  save  us. 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


217 


But  I  cannot  understand  how  love  or  justice  or  mercy 
could  punish  the  innocent  instead  of  the  guilty.  I  can 
see  neither  love  nor  mercy  nor  justice  in  that.  I  could 
not  punish  one  of  my  children  for  the  disobedience  of 
the  others.  Every  principle  of  justice  in  my  nature 
revolts  against  it.  It  seems  to  me  the  greatest  injustice, 
while  no  suffering  is  saved  by  it.  The  punishment  is 
simply  transferred  from  the  guilty  to  the  innocent,  from 
the  many,  and  poured  with  terrible  concentration  upon 
one.  Such  a  transfer  satisfies  neither  love  nor  justice. 
Nothing  is  gained  by  it.  Every  principle  of  right  is 
violated.  It  also  necessitates  two  distinct  Divine  beings 
to  carry  a  vicarious  scheme  of  salvation  into  effect  ;  all 
our  relations  to  the  one  only  Lord  are  thrown  into  con- 
fusion, and  we  are  brought  into  no  more  intimate  union 
with  Him  than  we  were  before.  All  that  is  claimed  for 
the  vicarious  scheme  is  the  transference  of  a  penalty  from 
the  guilty  to  the  innocent.  But  if  my  Creator,  my 
Heavenly  Father,  the  constant  source  of  my  life,  touched 
with  infinite  pity,  came  after  me,  His  lost  and  dying  child, 
found  me,  took  me  by  the  hand,  tried  to  gain  recogni- 
tion and  lead  me  back  to  life,  I  can  understand  that.  It 
meets  every  demand  of  my  nature. 

But  if  it  was  not  to  suffer  a  penalty,  and  if  it  was  to 
restore  man  to  union  with  Himself,  the  question  still  re- 
mains. Why  was  it  necessary  to  take  upon  Himself 
man's  nature?  The  question  has  already  been  answered 
by  inference  if  not  directly  ;  but  it  demands  a  fuller  and 
more  direct  reply. 

To  see  the  reason  clearly  we  must  go  back  to  our 
original  point  of  view  ;  we  must  keep  in  mind  that  the 
K  19 


21 8     PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


real  relations  between  man  and  the  Lord  are  those  of  the 
recipient  of  life  to  the  Giver  of  life,  of  the  branch' to  the 
vine.  The  interior  degrees  of  man's  being  were  nearly 
dead.  He  had  lost  all  true  knowledge  of  God.  He  had 
almost  lost  the  knowledge  of  His  existence.  He  had 
made  the  Word  of  God  of  none  effect  by  his  traditions  ; 
he  had  so  perverted  every  form  of  his  spiritual  organism 
that  he  called  evil  good  and  truth  falsity.  Communica- 
tion with  the  pure  and  good  in  the  spiritual  world  was 
interrupted  and  nearly  closed,  and  man  was  surrounded 
within  and  without  by  beings  like  himself  Every  child 
was  born  with  the  perverted  spiritual  as  well  as  physical 
nature  of  its  parents  ;  it  breathed  an  atmosphere  poisoned 
with  every  evil.  Man  in  his  relations  to  the  Lord  was 
like  a  tree  stripped  of  its  leaves  and  bruised  and  marred, 
and  so  excluded  from  the  light  and  heat  of  the  sun  that 
its  influences  could  reach  it  only  in  feeble  and  reflected 
forms.  All  the  avenues  between  man  and  the  Lord,  the 
source  of  his  life,  were  so  closed  and  perverted  that  he 
was  dying.  He  had  lost  all  consciousness  of  the  higher 
qualities  of  goodness  and  truth.  The  Lord  could  not 
get  access  to  him  from  within.  He  could  not  reach  him 
through  others.  There  was  only  one  way.  He  must 
come  Himself  But  He  could  not  come  to  man  without 
bridging  the  gulf  between  the  infinite  and  the  finite,  be- 
tween the  Divine  and  the  human.  Man  was  in  a  merely 
sensuous  condition  ;  the  Lord  could  not  come  to  him 
except  where  he  was.  He  must  confront  him  face  to 
face.  He  must  do  as  Elisha  did  to  the  Sliunammite's 
son.  He  must  stretch  Himself  upon  man.  IIcmust])ut 
His  mouth  ui)on  man's  mouth,  His  eyes  upon  man's 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


219 


eyes,  and  His  hands  upon  man's  hands.  He  must  bring 
His  hfe  in  direct  contact  with  man's  organism,  and  in 
forms  that  would  take  effect.  Here  was  a  real  difficulty 
to  be  overcome.  It  was  not  a  legal  or  technical  difficulty  ; 
it  was  not  any  fiction  of  justice.  It  was  a  question  of 
reaching  man  where  he  lay  dying,  and  of  breathing  new 
life  into  him.  There  was  no  other  medium  of  communi- 
cating life  than  a  spiritual  and  material  organism  which 
should  touch  the  Divine  on  one  side  and  the  material  on 
the  other,  and  so  connect  them  link  by  link  until  the 
chain  was  complete  and  the  Divine  power  could  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  man.  Then  when  he  should  touch 
this  Divine  human  presence  virtue  would  go  out  of  the 
Lord  to  heal  him,  as  it  did  to  the  woman  who  touched 
the  hem  of  His  garment  and  was  made  whole. 

The  human  nature  of  our  Lord  is  called  by  many 
names,  according  to  the  office  it  performs.  It  is  called 
the  Son  of  God  and  the  Son  of  man,  because  it  was  be- 
gotten of  God  and  born  of  man.  It  is  called  the  right 
hand  and  arm  of  power  because  by  means  of  it  the  Lord 
could  bring  His  Divine  power  to  bear  upon  man  to  save 
and  bless  him.  It  is  called  the  door  because  it  opens  the 
way  of  access  of  the  Lord  to  man  and  of  man  to  the 
Lord,  swinging  either  way.  It  is  called  the  mediator  be- 
tween God  and  man  because  it  is  the  medium  by  which 
the  Divine  life  is  transmitted  to  man,  and  the  way  by 
which  man  ascends  to  the  Father.  ' '  No  man  cometh 
unto  the  Father  but  by  me."  It  is  called  Jesus,  Saviour, 
because  it  is  the  means  by  which  man  is  saved.  It  is 
called  Christ  because  it  is  anointed  to  subdue  man's  ene- 
mies and  to  rule  in  the  power  of  the  Divine  truth.  It 


220     PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


was  what  all  these  names  describe,  and  much  more  ;  but 
there  was  one  thing  it  was  not.  It  was  not  a  being  or 
person  separate  and  distinct  from  the  one  God.  It  was 
the  necessary  means  of  closing  the  breach  between  the 
recipients  of  life  and  the  source  of  life  ;  the  means  by 
which  God  came  to  man. 

I  have  one  more  question  to  answer,  and  I  am  done. 
How  did  this  assumption  of  man's  nature  by  Jehovah 
effect  an  atonement  between  Him  and  man  ?  The  answer 
to  this  question  will  depend  upon  what  is  meant  by  atone- 
ment. If  by  atonement  is  meant  a  satisfaction  of  Divine 
justice,  made  by  suffering  a  penalty  which  is  equivalent 
to  that  which  man  would  have  sufTered  if  it  had  fallen 
upon  his  unsheltered  head,  then  I  grant  it  did  not  accom- 
plish that.  If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  distinct  person  from 
Jehovah,  and  He  assumed  this  nature  for  the  purpose  of 
paying  a  debt  to  Jehovah  which  man  could  not  pay,  then 
I  do  not  see  how  Jehovah,  who  is  the  source  of  life,  is 
brought  into  any  nearer  relations  with  man,  who  is 
merely  a  form  recipient  of  life.  I  do  not  see  how  it 
connects  them  in  any  way.  If  by  atonement  is  meant 
the  settlement  of  legal  difficulties  between  man  and  his 
Maker,  I  grant  that  the  doctrine  which  I  ha\  e  stated  does 
not  explain  it,  because  it  has  no  relation  to  it  ;  it  does 
not  look  to  it  in  any  respect  ;  it  does  not  recognize  any 
such  difficulties.  If  you  mean  the  removal  of  any  venge- 
ful or  unkind  feelings  from  the  heart  of  Jehovah  towards 
man,  effecting  a  willingness  in  the  Divine  mind  to  ac- 
quit man  of  the  punishment  due  to  his  sins,  in  consid- 
eration of  the  sufTerings  of  another,  then  I  confess  that 
the  doctrine  that  Jehovah  Himself  assumed  a  human 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


221 


nature  from  pure  love  to  man,  for  the  purpose  of  recon- 
ciling man  to  Himself  and  bringing  him  within  the  reach 
of  His  Divine  arms,  that  He  might  raise  him  up  and  draw 
him  closer  to  His  infinite  heart,  does  not  account  for  any- 
such  effect.  None  of  these  purposes  look  to  any  real 
union  between  man  and  the  Lord.  They  only  look  to 
the  payment  of  a  debt  or  the  satisfaction  of  some  legal 
claims  of  the  Lord  upon  man.  Supposing  such  a  result 
to  be  reached,  it  leaves  man  intellectually  and  morally 
just  where  it  finds  him.  No  new  and  higher  knowledge 
of  God  is  communicated  to  him,  no  discords  in  his  nature 
are  silenced,  no  evils  are  removed,  no  sins  are  remitted  ; 
only  the  penalty  is  paid.  No  new  and  higher  life  is 
breathed  into  his  soul,  reviving  and  quickening  and  puri- 
fying and  enlarging  it.  No  new  bond  of  union  is  formed 
between  man  and  the  Lord,  no  old  one  is  strengthened. 
Man  has  gone  into  voluntary  bankruptcy,  and  all  claims 
against  him  have  been  cancelled  because  a  Friend  has 
paid  them.    He  remains  as  naked  and  destitute  as  ever. 

But  if  the  work  of  atonement  consists  in  the  removal 
of  obstacles  to  the  inflowing  of  Divine  life  into  men, 
which  really  exist,  and  a  reawakening  of  his  spiritual  con- 
sciousness ;  if  new  channels  are  opened  between  the  Lord 
and  man,  through  which  the  river  of  life  can  flow  into 
his  parched  and  withered  heart  ;  if  new  and  clearer 
knowledge  of  the  Lord  is  communicated  to  him,  new 
help  is  given  to  him  to  overcome  his  evils  ;  if  his  spiritual 
blindness  is  cured,  his  ears  opened  to  hear  the  Word  of 
the  Lord  ;  if  the  lame  begin  to  leap  as  a  hart,  and  the 
tongue  of  the  dumb  to  sing,  and  man  is  lifted  out  of  the 
dust  and  darkness  of  a  merely  sensual  life  ;  if  all  the  ac- 

19* 


222      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


tivities  of  his  nature  are  brought  into  harmony  with  the 
Divine  nature,  and  his  whole  being  is  quickened  with  a 
new  and  higher  life,  and  he  is  drawn  into  closer  union 
with  the  Lord, — if  such  blessed  results  are  meant  by 
atonement,  then  we  can  see  that  this  bridging  of  the  gulf 
between  the  Source  of  life  and  the  recipients  of  life  is  the 
direct,  orderly  and  specific  means  of  accomplishing  it. 
It  involves  no  distinction  of  persons  in  God,  and  no  con- 
flicting elements  in  His  character ;  it  leads  us  into  no 
legal  absurdities.  This  is  a  doctrine  which  is  in  harmony 
with  reason  and  a  sense  of  justice,  and  it  brings  the 
Lord,  the  only  Lord,  our  Father,  Redeemer,  and  Saviour, 
so  near  to  us,  and  presents  Him  so  distinct  and  glorious 
as  the  embodiment  of  infinite  love  and  wisdom,  that  our 
hearts  must  be  hard  indeed  if  we  cannot  love  Him,  and 
are  not  powerfully  impelled  to  study  His  commandments 
that  we  may  learn  the  ways  which  lead  to  closer  union 
with  Him  and  diligently  walk  in  them.  This  is  a  real 
at-one-ment.  There  is  no  fiction  about  this.  It  is  the 
restoration  of  man  to  conjunction  with  the  Lord.  It  is 
the  renewal  of  the  covenant  between  man  and  the  Lord. 
It  is  the  provision  of  the  means  by  which  man  can  gain 
the  remission  of  his  sins  and  the  Divine  prayer  can  be 
fulfilled,  "That  they  all  may  be  one;  as  thou.  Father, 
art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us  : 
that  the  world  may  believe  that  thou  hast  sent  me." 

I  must  say  one  word  in  conclusion  about  the  practical 
value  of  true  knowledge  upon  this  subject.  If  our  .salva- 
tion depends  upon  our  character,  upon  ovir  intimate  and 
vital  conjunction  with  the  Lord,  who  is  the  source  of 
life  ;  if  it  depends  upon  being  cleansed  from  sin  itself, 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


223 


and  not  upon  the  remission  of  a  penalty  ;  upon  the  re- 
creation of  our  spiritual  faculties  and  such  a  change  in 
our  whole  spiritual  nature  that  it  is  brought  back  into 
harmony  with  the  Divine  nature  and  restored  to  its  origi- 
nal excellence  ;  and  if  in  this  work,  as  in  every  other,  we 
are  to  co-operate,  you  can  see  how  dangerous  it  would 
be  to  rely  upon  the  hope  that  some  one  else  has  suffered 
for  us,  paid  the  debt  for  us,  borne  the  penalty  for  us,  and 
transferred  His  merits  to  our  account.  Any  doctrine  or 
theory  which  turns  away  our  attention  from  our  inherent 
and  essential  relations  to  the  Lord,  and  obscures  the 
truth  that  there  are  no  obstacles  to  our  salvation  but  false 
and  evil  principles  in  us,  and  that  there  is  no  way  of  sal- 
vation but  shunning  evils  a's  sins  against  God  and  living 
according  to  the  commandments,  is  misleading,  and  will 
end  in  absolute  failure.  The  Lord  did  not  come  to  suffer 
in  our  stead,  to  pay  a  penalty  for  us,  to  be  good  for  us. 
He  came  to  help  us  to  resist  evil,  and  thereby  escape  its 
penalties^  He  came  to  help  us  to  live  according  to  the 
laws  of  life,  that  we  might  enjoy  the  peace  and  blessed- 
ness which  results  from  so  living. 


THE  FIRST  AND  SECOND  DEATH. 


"  And  I  say  unto  you  viy  friends,  Be  not  afraid  of  them  that 
kill  the  body,  and  after  that  have  no  more  that  they  can  do. 

"But  I  will  forewarn  you  whom  ye  shall  fear:  Fear  him, 
which  after  he  hath  killed  hath  power  to  cast  into  hell ;  yea,  I 
say  unto  you.  Fear  him." — Luke  xii.  4,  5. 

T^HERE  is  no  subject,  it  would  seem,  which  would 


interest  man  so  much  as  that  great  change  in  his 
existence  which  is  called  death,  and  yet  there  are  few 
questions  concerning  which  so  little  is  known  and  so 
many  errors  prevail.  The  most  common  opinions  con- 
cerning it  are  that  it  is  a  mystery,  a  terror  and  an  agony  ; 
that  it  was  sent  upon  man  as  a  punishment  for  disobedi- 
ence, and  that  it  is  a  standing  monument  of  the  Divine 
displeasure.  Consequently,  men  almost  uni\'ersally  shrink 
from  it  with  horror,  and  to  many  it  is  the  one  dark  cloud 
and  terrible  dread  of  life.  Poets  and  orators  and  Chris- 
tian teachers  hold  it  up  as  the  most  awful  calamity,  and 
it  is  the  severest  punishment  known  to  human  laws. 

But  much  of  the  mystery  and  terror  that  invests  it  is 
due  to  entire  misconceptions  of  its  origin  and  nature,  and 
these  misconceptions  seem  to  have  their  origin  in  con- 
founding the  two  deaths  and  attributing  to  one  the  quali- 
ties that  belong  to  the  other.  Men  ha\  e  attributed  to 
natural  death  the  pains  and  .sufferings  that  belong  only  to 
spiritual  death.    Indeed,  most  men  overlook  the  second 


224 


THE  FIRST  AiXD  SECOXD  DEATH.  225 

death  entirely,  and,  if  they  think  of  the  subject  at  all, 
think  only  of  natural  death. 

A  careful  examination  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  and 
enlightened  reason  will  show  us  that  natural  death,  by 
which  we  understand  the  separation  of  the  soul  from  the 
body,  was  not  sent  upon  man  as  a  punishment  for  sin, 
but  is  an  orderly  step  in  the  progress  of  his  life.  It  was 
not  this  death  that  came  into  the  world  by  sin.  If  man 
had  never  sinned  he  would  still  have  cast  off  his  material 
body  and  passed  on  into  the  spiritual  world. 

We  need  go  no  further  than  the  first  intimations  of 
death  which  we  have  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures  to  learn 
that  it  was  not  natural  death  that  came  by  sin.  The 
warning  given  to  Adam  and  Eve  was,  "  In  the  day  that 
thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shalt  surely  die."  (Gen.  ii.  17.) 
But  they  did  not  die  a  natural  death  in  that  day.  Either 
that  was  not  the  death  referred  to,  therefore,  or  the 
warning  was  a  false  one.  And  this  we  cannot  for  a  mo- 
ment suppose.  So  when  Moses  said  to  the  Israelites, 
' '  See,  I  have  set  before  thee  this  day  life  and  good,  and 
death  and  evil"  (Deut.  xxx.  15),  he  cannot  mean  natural 
life  and  death,  for  if  they  had  obeyed  every  one  of  his 
commandments  they  would  not  have  lived  forever  in  this 
world.  The  Lord  also  commanded  Jeremiah  to  say  to 
the  Jews,  "Thus  saith  the  Lord:  Behold,  I  set  before 
you  the  way  of  life,  and  the  way  of  death."  (Jer. 
xxi.  8.)  In  the  Psalms  also  it  is  said,  "Thou  hast  de- 
livered my  soul  from  death."  (Ps.  Ivi.  13  ;  cxvi.  8.) 
The  apostles  also  often  speak  of  death  in  this  sense.  But 
what  our  Lord  said  to  Martha  is  conclusive  upon  the 
subject,  "Whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  me  shall 


226      PROGRESS  /.V  SPIRITUAL  KXOW LEDGE. 


never  die."  (John  xi.  26.)  By  this  He  could  not  mean 
natural  death,  for  multitudes  which  no  man  can  number 
ha\  e  lived  and  believed  in  Him,  and  their  bodies  have 
returned  to  the  dust  from  which  they  were  formed. 
When  the  apostle  says  that  death  came  by  sin,  and  that 
death  has  passed  upon  all,  for  that  all  have  sinned  (Rom. 
V.  12),  he  evidently  means  the  death  of  the  soul.  There 
is  no  evidence  in  the  Bible  that  natural  death  was  caused 
by  sin.  It  is  a  mere  human  inference.  It  is  no  doubt 
true  that  much  of  the  sickness  and  pain  that  generally 
precedes  and  attends  our  departure  from  this  world  is 
more  or  less  remotely  caused  by  sin,  because  evil  desires 
and  false  principles  lead  to  the  violation  of  physical  laws, 
to  intemperance  in  eating  and  drinking,  to  an.xieties  and 
excitements  and  disorders  of  life.  The  average  duration 
of  human  life  in  this  world  has  without  doubt  also  been 
much  shortened  by  evil,  for  we  know  that  the  average 
duration  of  life  increases  as  civilization  advances  and  men 
become  more  observ  ant  of  the  laws  of  life.  But  there  is 
no  evidence  that  man  would  live  forever  in  this  world 
even  if  he  lived  a  perfect  life.  Immortality  in  this  world 
is  certainly  not  taught  in  the  Bible,  and  there  are  many 
rational  considerations  and  inferences  from  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  that  show  conclusively  that  it  is  not  according 
to  the  purposes  of  the  Divine  wisdom  that  man  should 
li\  e  here  forever. 

So  far  as  our  knowledge  extends,  the  existence  of 
ever)'  living  thing  organized  of  matter  is  limited.  It  has 
laws  of  birth,  growth,  and  decay.  There  is  no  excep- 
tion. Every  plant  in  the  vegetable  kingdom,  for  ex- 
ample, attains  its  growth  and  does  not  pass  beyond  a 


THE  FIRST  AND  SECOXD  DEATH. 


227 


certain  limit.  It  may  remain  stationary  there  for  years, 
for  centuries,  and  yet  the  moment  it  stands  still  it  begins 
to  decline,  and  eventually  it  will  fall  and  perish.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  animal  kingdom.  There  are  no  ex- 
ceptions to  the  law.  Now,  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that 
animals  and  vegetables  have  not  sinned  ;  they  live  ac- 
cording to  the  true  order  of  their  creation.  Man,  as  to 
his  physical  nature,  is  an  animal,  and  the  laws  of  his 
generation,  development,  and  life  are  the  same.  There 
have  been,  and  no  doubt  are  still,  multitudes  of  human 
beings  who  have  lived  in  perfect  health.  And  yet  they 
grow  old  and  die.  Nor  do  they  die  of  any  disease  ; 
when  the  body  has  done  its  work  it  shrivels  and  falls 
from  the  soul  as  the  husk  from  the  corn. 

But  again,  so  far  as  human  observation  extends,  the 
development  of  organized  beings  and  things  proceeds  by 
distinct  steps,  the  prior  acting  as  an  instrument  for  the 
creation  of  the  succeeding,  and  being  left  behind  it  in  the 
ascent.  In  the  vegetable  kingdom,  when  the  germ  ex- 
pands, the  outer  covering  which  contained  it  is  thrown 
aside  ;  the  blossom  fades  and  perishes  when  the  fruit  is 
born  and  begins  a  distinct  existence  ;  and  again,  the  husk 
and  chaff  and  rough  covering  which  have  served  as  a 
body  and  vessel  and  protection  for  the  fine,  fluent  sub- 
stances of  the  seed  during  its  formation  wither  and  die 
when  the  seed  is  ripe.  The  same  order  and  method  pre- 
vails in  the  animal  kingdom.  This  is  beautifully  exem- 
plified in  insects.  There  are  three  distinct  steps  in  insect 
life.  A  caterpillar  is  hatched  from  an  egg,  then  it  be- 
comes a  chrysalis  enclosed  in  a  hard  covering,  and  ap- 
parently almost  lifeless,  and  then  a  moth  or  butterfly. 


228     PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


During  these  metamorphoses,  or  changes  of  form,  it 
never  goes  back  and  resumes  its  former  state.  The  moth 
does  not  become  a  worm  and  the  worm  an  egg.  But  it 
continually  advances  until  it  completes  the  cycle  of  its 
life,  preparation  being  made  in  each  state  for  the  succeed- 
ing one. 

Have  these  analogies  and  this  method  of  the  Divine 
wisdom,  which  is  universal  so  far  as  we  know,  no  signifi- 
cance ?  So  far  as  our  observation  extends,  we  find  crea- 
tion and  life  proceeding  according  to  the  same  order  and 
method  in  man  as  in  all  other  creatures.  Can  we  suppose 
that  the  order  is  reversed  the  moment  we  reach  the  limits 
of  our  own  observation  ? 

Man  is  a  spiritual  being.  He  has  a  spiritual  body,  for  the 
apostle  Paul  declares,  ' '  There  is  a  s])iritual  body. ' '  Man 
has  a  nature  of  a  degree  distinctly  higher  than  the  animal, 
than  any  other  created  being.  And  is  it  not  according 
to  all  the  analogies  of  the  Divine  method  of  creating  that 
man  should  attain  his  highest  state  by  successive  changes 
of  state?  continually  throwing  off  and  leaving  behind 
those  materials  and  instruments  which  have  been  used  as 
means  fur  its  attainment  ?  If  there  is  any  force  in  reason- 
ing from  universal  methods,  I  do  not  see  how  we  can 
come  to  any  other  conclusion  tlian  that  natural  death  is  a 
stej)  forward  in  life,  if  man  has  a  distinctly  spiritual  nature, 
a  spiritual  body. 

But  if  the  laws  of  analogy  did  not  point  with  sure  indi- 
cations to  the  great  truth  that  natural  death  is  only  a  step 
forward  in  life,  we  might  infer  it  from  the  infinite  nature 
of  the  Divine  love  and  wisdom.  Suppose  it  had  been 
the  original  intention  of  the  Creator  that  man  should  live 


THE  FIRST  AND  SECOND  DEATH.  229 

immortal  upon  this  earth,  there  must  soon  have  been  a 
Hmit  to  the  number  of  human  beings  He  could  create  ; 
for  while  man  lives  upon  the  earth  clothed  in  a  material 
body  he  must  be  fed  with  products  from  the  earth,  and 
even  in  the  most  perfect  order  of  things  the  limits  of  its 
power  to  sustain  human  life  must  be  reached  ;  and  when 
that  limit  is  reached  the  whole  order  and  nature  of  man 
must  be  changed.  Society  must  to  a  great  extent  be- 
come stationary.  No  new  elements  could  be  constantly 
added  to  it ;  no  new  varieties  of  character  be  constantly 
adding  to  its  perfection.  Conceive  for  a  moment  the 
earth  to  be  crowded  with  a  population  to  the  full  extent 
of  its  capacity  to  support  life,  and  the  same  beings  to 
dwell  upon  it  forever,  with  no  infancy,  no  childhood,  no 
old  age,  nothing  to  call  forth  our  sympathy,  nothing  to 
awaken  fresh  and  lively  hopes, — would  not  such  a  state 
be  more  like  the  dead  level  of  a  stagnant  pool  than  the 
running  stream  of  an  ever-varying  life  ?  Would  not 
some  of  the  elements  which  seem  most  important  and 
even  essential  to  human  happiness  be  wanting  ? 

But  suppose  the  earth  to  be  filled  with  happy  people. 
Could  the  comparatively  few  human  beings  the  earth 
could  sustain  satisfy  the  infinite  love  of  the  Lord  ? 
There  is  something  of  the  infinite  even  in  the  material 
world.  We  see  it  in  the  variety  which  everywhere  ex- 
ists ;  no  two  things  or  beings  are  alike.  We  see  it  in  the 
tendency  of  every  plant  and  animal  to  reproduction  and 
multiplication.  Can  we  for  a  moment  suppose  that  man, 
who  stands  at  the  head  of  the  Creator's  works,  should  be 
the  only  exception  to  this  law  ?  that  while  plants  and 
animals  are  produced  in  endless  variety  in  a  circle  of  suc- 

20 


230      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


cessive  generations,  man,  who  was  created  in  the  image 
and  Hkeness  of  God,  should  soon  reach  the  hmit  of  his 
numbers,  and  beyond  that  limit  could  know  no  increase 
through  the  coming  eternity  ?  How  much  grander  the 
idea,  and  worthier  of  infinite  love,  and  more  in  accord- 
ance with  all  we  know  of  the  Divine  methods,  that  an 
endless  succession  of  generations  should  be  born  upon 
the  earth  and  transplanted  into  the  heavens  !  Thus 
human  life  upon  the  earth,  instead  of  being  the  com- 
pleted work  of  the  Lord,  is  only  its  beginning.  Earth  is 
the  nursery  and  seminary  of  heaven,  where  human  souls 
capable  of  receiving  the  Divine  life  and  reciprocating  the 
Divine  love,  capable  of  loving  and  being  loved,  can  be 
born  with  endless  variety  and  number. 

But  again,  if  man  was  born  to  live  forever  in  this 
world,  what  becomes  of  all  the  promised  blessedness  of 
heaven  ?  Are  we  not  taught  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures, 
both  by  positive  precept  and  inevitable  inference,  that 
heaven  is  a  better  and  more  perfect  world  than  this? 
What  becomes  of  the  happiness  which  eye  hath  not  seen, 
nor  ear  heard,  nor  heart  conceived?  Is  heaven,  the 
abode  of  the  angels  and  the  Lord,  a  mere  refuge  from 
this  world  ?  and  does  its  principal  excellence  consist  in 
the  contrasts  it  furnishes  to  this  life  ?  Would  there  have 
been  no  mansions  in  heaven  for  us  if  there  had  been  no 
sin  upon  earth  ?  Would  there  have  been  no  songs  of  joy 
there  by  human  voices  if  there  had  been  no  wail  of  sor- 
row here  ?  Even  upon  the  supposition  that  the  angels 
are  a  race  of  beings  distinct  from  men,  would  heaven  be 
as  perfect,  would  the  angels  be  as  haj^py  in  their  bright 
abodes,  without  a  constant  accession  of  human  beings 


THE  FIRST  AiVD  SECOND  DEATH.  231 

from  the  earth  to  instruct  and  love  ?  If  you  insist  that 
man  was  born  to  be  immortal  in  this  world,  but  that  the 
happiness  of  heaven  exceeds  anything  possible  to  this 
life,  as  the  prevalent  theology  does,  you  admit  that  man 
has  been  a  gainer  by  sin  ;  he  has  escaped  from  a  world 
of  material  limitations  and  imperfections  and  gained  en- 
trance to  one  where  all  the  conditions  of  his  existence  are 
perfect,  where  he  can  associate  with  angelic  beings  and 
enjoy  a  fulness  and  perfection  of  happiness  impossible  to 
this.  If  you  admit  that  heaven  would  not  be  as  perfect 
without  a  continual  influx  of  life  from  this  world,  you 
admit  that  both  angels  and  men  are  gainers  by  natural 
death. 

Whatever  view  we  take  of  the  subject,  then,  I  see  but 
one  escape  from  the  inevitable  conclusion  that  natural 
death  has  in  itself  no  real  terrors  ;  that  it  is  an  orderly 
step  in  man's  successive  creation,  and  a  part  of  the  great 
original  purpose  of  the  Divine  love  and  wisdom,  accord- 
ing to  which  there  is  to  be  an  endless  succession  of  human 
souls  created  upon  the  earth,  who,  after  passing  through 
various  stages  here,  are  to  find  their  final  home  in  the 
spiritual  world.  I  say  I  see  but  one  escape  from  this 
conclusion,  and  that  is  in  the  admission  that  the  spiritual 
world  is  not  so  real  and  perfect  a  world  as  this.  And 
that  admission  involves  so  many  and  great  absurdities, 
such  an  entire  inversion  of  all  the  methods  of  the  Divine 
order  ;  is  so  contrary  to  the  whole  tenor  of  the  Word 
and  subversive  of  the  precious  promises  and  immortal 
hopes  it  holds  out  to  us,  that  it  seems  impossible  that 
any  rational  mind  could  entertain  it  for  a  moment.  If 
the  spiritual  world  is  not  the  vain  dream  of  an  idle  fancy  ; 


232      PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

if  the  Lord  and  the  angels  and  the  promises  of  heavenly 
blessedness  are  not  fallacious  hopes,  then  that  change  in 
our  organization,  that  disrobing  of  the  spirit  by  its  resur- 
rection from  the  material  body,  that  escape  from  the  im- 
prisonment and  bonds  of  the  flesh,  which  men  call  death, 
has  no  real  terror,  and,  instead  of  shrinking  from  it  with 
horror,  we  ought  to  welcome  it  as  our  deliverer  from 
bondage,  as  an  introduction  into  life. 

And  without  doubt  we  should  regard  death  in  this  light 
if  we  had  not  invested  it  with  terrors  which  belong  to  an 
entirely  different  subject,  and  lost  all  true  idea  of  the 
nature  and  reality  of  the  world  to  which  it  introduces  us. 
Before  man  had  so  far  receded  from  that  world  by  a  life 
of  evil  as  almost  to  forget  its  existence,  death  had  no 
terrors.  It  was  the  gate  of  entrance  into  a  new  life.  He 
lay  down  to  sleep  with  the  delightful  hope  and  perfect 
confidence  that  he  would  wake  in  a  new  world.  Death 
was  going  home  ;  it  was  the  conscious  entrance  into  a 
higher  state  of  being.  It  was  the  happy  reunion  with 
loved  ones  who  had  gone  before.  It  was  a  step  which 
brought  him  nearer  to  the  Fountain  of  all  life  and  the 
Author  of  all  human  blessedness.  How  could  it  be  re- 
garded with  fear  ?  How  could  the  soul  shrink  from  it 
with  horror  ?  Suppose  the  chrysalis,  imprisoned  in  that 
hard  covering  we  may  call  its  body,  buried  in  the  earth 
and  limited  to  a  bare  existence,  could  have  a  perception 
of  the  change  that  is  soon  to  take  place  in  its  state.  It 
is  soon  to  burst  the  gates  of  its  present  life  and  emerge 
into  a  new  world  of  light  and  beauty.  Instead  of  being 
buried  in  the  dark  earth,  it  is  to  soar  aloft  through  the 
air,  to  bask  in  the  light  and  warmth  of  the  summer  sun, 


THE  FIRST  AND  SECOND  DEATH. 


233 


to  sport  in  joyous  flights  in  happy  bands,  to  feed  upon 
the  honeyed  dews  and  the  distilled  sweets  of  flowers. 
Do  you  think  it  would  look  forward  to  such  a  change 
with  dread  ?  But  the  change  from  the  chrysalis  almost 
devoid  of  life,  shut  up  in  the  dark,  to  the  gay  and  beau- 
tiful insect  is  not  so  great  as  the  change  that  takes 
place  in  man  in  his  resurrection  from  the  material  body. 
This  change,  then,  which  men  call  death,  this  putting  off" 
of  the  material  body,  is  not,  cannot  be,  an  interruption 
of  the  Divine  plan,  a  thwarting  of  the  Divine  purposes 
of  good  towards  His  human  children.  It  must  be  the 
fulfilment  of  those  purposes.  All  Scripture  properly  un- 
derstood, all  right  reason,  teaches  us  that  it  must  be  so. 
To  deny  it  is  to  plunge  into  inexplicable  absurdities. 

But  there  is  a  death  which  we  ought  to  fear,  and  from 
which  we  shall  do  well  to  shrink  with  horror,  and  that  is 
spiritual  death,  sometimes  called  the  "second  death." 
This  death  does  not  consist  in  a  cessation  of  existence, 
nor  in  the  departure  from  this  world  to  the  spiritual 
world,  but  in  the  inversion  and  destruction  of  the  true 
order  of  man's  nature. 

Man  is  said  to  be  alive,  in  the  Word,  when  he  receives 
life  from  the  Lord  according  to  the  original  order  and 
constitution  of  his  nature.  The  Jews  were  promised 
life  if  they  would  obey  the  laws  of  the  Lord.  The 
whole  Word  is  full  of  the  same  promises.  ' '  If  thou  wilt 
enter  into  life,"  said  our  Saviour,  "keep  the  command- 
ments." He  came  that  men  might  have  life.  This  was 
spiritual  and  not  natural  life.  And  the  reason  why  life  is 
promised  on  the  condition  of  keeping  the  command- 
ments, and  often  as  a  reward  for  keeping  them,  is  be- 

20* 


234     PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

cause  the  commandments  are  the  laws  of  Hfe.  The 
rewards  are  not  arbitrarily  given,  but  follow  as  a  conse- 
quence, as  the  physician  may  promise  health  on  the  con- 
dition of  our  obeying  the  laws  of  physical  life. 

Man  was  created  by  infinite  wisdom  according  to  a  cer- 
tain order.  By  observing  this  order  he  would  attain  his 
life,  a  life  ever  increasing  in  fulness  and  degree.  Any 
deviation  from  that  order  would  be  attended  with  some 
loss  of  life.  It  would  prevent  man  from  receiving  life 
from  the  Lord  in  its  fulness  and  perfection.  The  moment 
man  violated  a  law  of  his  spiritual  nature  he  suffered  some 
loss  of  spiritual  capacity.  Man  began  to  die.  This  was 
the  warning  the  Lord  gave  Adam  and  Eve,  "  In  the  day 
tliat  thou  eatest  thereof,  thou  shalt  surely  die."  And 
the  warning  was  not  an  idle  one.  They  did  die  in  the 
day,  not  the  natural  day  of  twenty-four  hours,  but  in  the 
state  and  according  to  the  degree  that  they  ate  of  the 
forbidden  fruit,  which  was  evil.  And  this  is  a  universal 
law  in  all  orders  and  degrees  of  the  creation.  When  the 
laws  of  vegetable  life  are  broken,  the  plant  begins  to  die. 
When  the  laws  of  animal  life,  of  man's  physical  life,  are 
violated,  the  animal  and  the  body  begin  to  die.  Death 
follows  as  an  inevitable  consequence.  It  is  not  arbitra- 
rily inflicted.  As  the  .soul  is  immortal,  spiritual  death 
is  not  the  cessation  of  existence,  but  the  loss  of  the 
soul's  ability  to  receive  life  from  the  Lord  in  true  order. 
The  substances  which  compose  the  soul  cannot  be  dis- 
sipated as  the  material  elements  which  compose  plants, 
animals,  and  the  material  body  can.  Man  as  a  spiritual 
ijcing  must  continue  to  exist,  but  in  a  state  of  spiritual 
death. 


THE  FIRST  AND  SECOND  DEATH. 


235 


There  are  two  principal  characteristics  of  this  death 
worthy  of  our  notice. 

First,  it  is  a  loss  of  life.  Man  was  created  by  the  Lord 
with  the  power  of  perpetual  and  indefinite  advancement 
in  his  capacity  to  know  and  love  and  be  happy.  The 
more  we  learn,  the  more  we  are  capable  of  learning.  The 
more  we  love,  the  more  we  are  capable  of  loving.  The 
more  we  enjoy,  the  more  we  are  capable  of  enjoying.  So 
that  the  feeblest  child  upon  the  earth  may  ultimately  pass 
beyond  the  present  state  of  the  highest  angel.  But  spir- 
itual death  arrests  this  development.  It  closes  up  the 
higher  degrees  of  man's  mind  against  Divine  influences, 
and  shuts  out  the  light  and  life  of  heaven.  His  whole 
nature  becomes  stunted  and  dwarfed.  He  stops  in  the 
grand  and  endless  career  of  life  at  the  beginning,  and 
loses  all  the  glory  and  blessedness  of  the  eternal  future. 
And  no  finite  mind  can  estimate  that  loss.  Men  are  often 
inconsolable  at  the  loss  of  property  or  office,  on  account 
of  hinderance  in  some  earthly  career,  but  that  is  a  mere 
nothing  compared  with  his  loss  who  dies  at  the  beginning 
of  life.  How  sad  it  is  to  see  a  blind  child  !  By  the  death 
of  his  eyes  how  much  he  has  lost  !  He  must  wander  in 
darkness  through  the  earth,  comparatively  helpless,  for 
ten,  twenty,  fifty  years,  unconscious  of  its  beauty  of  form 
and  color,  of  the  significance  of  expressive  faces  and 
gestures,  of  the  changing  glories  of  the  seasons,  of  day 
and  night,  and  the  ever-shifting  play  of  things  by  which 
the  web  of  human  life  is  woven.  How  great,  how  irrep- 
arable, how  sad  the  loss  !  And  yet  what  is  that  compared 
with  the  loss  of  one's  spiritual  sight?  Nothing, — abso- 
lutely nothing  !    One  is  the  loss  for  a  few  years  of  the 


236     PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


sight  of  earthly  things,  the  other  the  loss  to  eternity  of 
the  inexpressible  beauty  and  glory  of  heaven.  This  is 
but  one  of  the  senses. 

Suppose  you  had  held  in  your  hand  the  first  grain  of 
wheat  that  was  created.  You  planted  it,  and  in  time  it 
just  pushed  its  head  above  the  ground,  and  there  its 
progress  is  arrested.  It  remains  a  green  blade,  but  be- 
comes nothing  more.  What  a  loss  to  humanity  !  Thou- 
sands of  millions  of  acres,  waving  with  golden  harvests, 
the  staff  of  life  for  thousands  of  generations,  broken.  It 
surpasses  the  power  of  the  finite  mind  to  conceive  the 
loss  to  humanity,  and  yet  that  is  nothing  compared  with 
what  every  soul  will  lose  whose  progress  is  arrested  in  the 
first  beginning  of  life  by  spiritual  death.  "What  shall 
it  profit  a  man.  if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose 
his  own  soul  ?' ' 

You  observe  that  I  say  nothing  so  far  about  pain  and 
punishment,  but  speak  merely  of  loss  of  attainment,  of 
what  man  does  not  gain,  of  the  endless  and  only  less  than 
infinite  blessings  the  Lord  intended  for  him  which  he  fails 
to  receive.  And  if  he  were  to  stop  there,  like  the  grain 
of  wheat  arrested  in  its  growth,  and  suffer  no  pain,  suffer 
nothing  but  the  loss,  can  you  conceive  anything  more 
terrible  ?  What  a  blasting  of  hopes  !  What  bankruptcy  ! 
What  eternal  ruin  !  Who  would  not  fear  a  death  which 
closes  the  gates  of  such  hopes  against  us  and  bars  us  from 
the  possession  of  such  endless  and  ineffable  joys  ? 

But  this  is  not  all.  By  that  inversion  of  life  which  we 
call  spiritual  death  the  soul  comes  into  such  a  state  of 
disorder  and  discord  with  the  Fountain  of  life  and  with 
all  outward  things  that  it  is  filled  with  perpetual  pain.  It 


THE  FIRST  AND  SECOND  DEATH. 


237 


is  not  my  purpose  to  describe  tlie  woes  and  agonies  of 
the  second  death.  We  all  know  something  of  what  they 
are,  for  there  is  not  a  sorrow  or  pain  that  afflicts  human 
hearts  that  is  not  the  effect  of  the  second  death.  Count 
up  your  own  sorrows,  the  pain  from  blasted  hopes,  the 
pangs  of  regret,  the  stings  of  remorse,  the  chafings  from 
conflicting  interests,  the  smarts  of  jealousy  and  shame, 
and  the  great  shadow  of  fear  that  lies  like  a  cloud  upon 
all  hearts  ;  measure  the  sum  of  human  suffering  in  the 
hearts  around  you,  and  they  will  declare  the  awful  conse- 
quences of  this  death  in  a  language  more  forcible  and 
eloquent  than  the  painter's  colors  or  the  writer's  words. 
Add  to  these,  if  you  can,  the  future  consequences  of  this 
death,  the  night  that  has  no  hope  of  a  coming  morning, 
the  cup  of  misery  that  can  never  be  drained,  the  feverish 
and  tormenting  desires  that  can  never  be  appeased.  Is 
there  not  reason  in  the  Divine  words,  "  And  I  say  unto 
you,  my  friends,  Be  not  afraid  of  them  that  kill  the  body, 
and  after  that  have  no  more  that  they  can  do.  But  I  will 
forewarn  you  whom  ye  shall  fear  :  Fear  him,  who  after 
he  hath  killed  hath  power  to  cast  into  hell.  Yea,  I  say 
unto  you,  Fear  him"  ! 

Is  there  not  every  reason  to  fear  this  death  ?  Human 
language  is  totally  inadequate  to  express  its  horrors. 
Human  imagination  cannot  adequately  conceive  its 
awful  terrors.  You  may  fear  it ;  you  ought  to  fear  it ; 
teach  your  children  to  fear  it  ;  warn  your  friends  and 
neighbors  to  fear  it.  It  is  the  most  terrible  thing  in  the 
universe. 

And  yet  men  do  not  fear  it.  They  play  and  dance 
with  it  ;  they  crown  it  with  roses,  and  sink  willingly  into 


238      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KyOlVLEDGE. 


its  embrace.  Gentle  and  timid  women,  who  would 
scream  at  a  harmless  insect  and  fall  into  a  swoon  at  the 
sight  of  blood,  will  gayly  and  boldly  toy  with  death  ;  will 
greet  it  with  gay  laughter  and  song,  and  cherish  it  with 
its  hideous  deformities  and  the  sting  of  its  endless  pain 
in  the  secret  shrine  of  their  hearts.  And  men  who  call 
themselves  ruined  if  they  lose  money,  who  are  ashamed 
of  goodness  and  have  not  sufficient  courage  to  say,  I 
have  done  wrong,  are  bold  enough  to  do  the  wrong. 

I  know  of  no  illusion  of  evil  so  cunning  and  destruc- 
tive to  human  souls  as  that  which  conceals  the  horrors  of 
real  death  with  deceptive  and  vain  delights,  and  invests 
a  mere  step  in  life  with  all  the  horrors  of  death.  How 
we  mourn  when  a  beloved  one  is  translated  !  We  look 
at  the  body  which  is  cast  off,  and  our  eyes  are  blinded 
with  tears.  But  who  weeps  over  the  dead  souls  that  fill 
our  houses  and  throng  our  streets  ?  The  stir  and  bustle 
and  noisy  activity  that  everywhere  meet  the  eye  and  fall 
upon  the  ear  are  not  the  sounds  of  life.  The  shout  and 
song  that  come  from  festive  halls  are  not  the  sounds  of 
living  souls,  but  too  often  the  wild,  mad  revelry  of  death. 
And  the  earth,  this  beautiful  and  glorious  earth,  created 
to  be  the  birthplace  of  immortal  souls  and  the  sweet 
cradle  of  infancy,  the  nursery  of  heaven,  has  become  a 
vast  sepulchre,  a  dwelling  for  the  dead,  a  grave  in  which 
human  .souls  are  buried. 

We  die  spiritually  before  we  do  naturally.  The  death 
of  the  body  only  lifts  the  veil  and  reveals  to  us  in  clear 
light  the  death  of  the  soul  that  already  exists,  and  per- 
mits us  to  pass  on  to  its  full  consequences.  When  the 
body  has  performed  its  use,  it  fades  like  the  blossom,  it 


THE  FIRST  AND  SECOiXD  DEATH. 


239 


withers  and  falls  like  the  husk,  and  reveals  the  life  or 
death  that  exists  within.  It  does  not  cause  it  ;  it  does 
not  add  to  it  or  subtract  from  it,  any  more  than  the  re- 
moval of  the  chaff  adds  to  or  subtracts  from  the  wheat. 

Let  us  not,  then,  confound  these  two  things  so  en- 
tirely distinct  and  different,  and  live  in  constant  dread  of 
that  death  which  is  but  an  orderly  step  in  life  and  a  pro- 
vision of  infinite  mercy,  while  we  forget  the  real  danger 
of  our  souls. 


HEAVEN. 


"  In  my  Father's  house  are  many  mansions :  if  it  were  not  so, 
I  would  have  told  you.    I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you. 

"  A?id  if  I  go  and  prepare  a  place  for  you,  I  will  come  again, 
and  receive  you  unto  myself;  that  where  I  am,  there  ye  may  be 
also.'' — John  xiv.  2,  3. 

T  INVITE  your  attention  to  what  the  doctrines  of  the 
New  Church,  as  contained  in  the  writings  of  Emanuel 
Swedenborg,  teach  us  concerning  heaven.  Swedenborg 
presents  the  subject  in  his  work  on  "  Heaven  and  Hell" 
from  two  points  of  view  :  from  the  nature  of  the  Lord  and 
from  the  nature  of  man,  and  we  must  take  the  same 
position  and  view  it  in  the  same  light  if  we  desire  to  get 
any  clear  idea  of  his  disclosures  concerning  it. 

The  Lord  is  essentially  a  being  of  infinite  love  and 
wisdom.  His  end  or  motive  in  creating  the  universe  and 
man  must  have  been  the  formation  of  a  heaven  of  intelli- 
gent beings  whom  He  could  bless  with  the  largest  meas- 
ures of  the  highest  happiness  it  is  possible  for  a  finite 
being  to  receive.  Infinite  love  could  do  no  less  than  this. 
Infinite  wisdom  also  could  not  fail  to  provide  the  best 
possible  means  in  every  form,  quality,  and  method  for 
attaining  the  ends  of  infinite  love.  If  you  assume  that 
tlie  Lord  could  have  had  any  other  end  in  the  creation 
than  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number,  your  sup- 
position denies  His  infinite  love.  It  falls  short  of  the 
highest  ])urpose  which  even  a  finite  mind  can  conceive  ; 
240 


HE  A  VEN. 


241 


how,  then,  can  it  be  infinite  ?  If  you  assume  that  the 
Lord  has  not  devised  the  best  possible  methods  to  carry 
His  purpose  into  effect,  you  do  not  accord  to  Him  in- 
finite wisdom  and  power.  He  could  have  done  better 
than  He  has,  and  that  would  be  infinite  folly  and  failure. 
The  Lord's  nature  demands  that  He  shall  provide  a 
state  of  endless  and  boundless  blessedness. 

We  must  come  to  the  same  conclusion  if  we  view  the 
subject  from  the  nature  of  man.  There  is  not  a  prin- 
ciple or  power  or  form  in  man's  soul,  mind,  or  body, 
when  unperverted,  which  does  not  look  to  the  same  end. 
If  you  examine  the  material  body  in  its  relations  to  the 
material  universe,  you  find  that  every  bone,  muscle, 
tendon,  nerve, — every  organic  form  in  its  least  and 
largest  parts,  was  designed  directly  or  indirectly  to  be 
an  inlet  of  delight  ;  to  contribute  in  some  way  to  man's 
happiness  in  this  world.  If  you  examine  the  material 
universe  you  find  that  everything,  from  the  rock  to  the 
sun,  was  designed  to  contribute  to  human  well-being  ;  to 
sustain,  to  protect,  to  delight,  and  to  bless  man.  If  you 
view  the  human  body  in  its  relations  to  the  human  soul, 
you  discover  that  it  is  designed  with  an  exquisite  skill  to 
clothe  the  soul  and  to  serve  as  its  instrument  in  gain- 
ing ideas,  in  developing  its  affections,  and  in  forming  the 
basis  for  an  immortal  career  in  another  world.  If  you 
look  at  the  nature  of  man  himself,  his  love  for  knowledge 
and  delight  in  obtaining  it,  his  power  of  loving  and  the 
blessedness  which  flows  from  the  exercise  of  that  power  ; 
when  you  consider  that  his  capacities  to  know,  love,  and 
enjoy  are  so  great  that  nothing  can  satisfy  him,  so  im- 
measurable that  it  is  impossible  for  a  finite  mind  to  con- 


242      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


ceive  of  any  assignable  limit  beyond  which  he  may  not 
pass,  what  other  conclusion  is  possible  than  that  the 
Lord  created  man  and  specifically  formed  him  in  every 
organ,  quality,  and  principle  to  be  a  recipient  of  endless 
and  ever-increasing  happiness  ?  To  deny  it  is  to  attrib- 
ute to  Him  the  monstrous  mistake  and  folly  of  creating 
human  beings  with  capacities  and  wants  for  which  He 
provided  no  means  of  supply,  thus  compelling  His  chil- 
dren to  go  on  their  endless  way  with  a  burning  thirst  which 
He  has  provided  no  living  waters  to  assuage,  and  con- 
suming hunger  which  there  is  no  bread  to  satisfy.  That 
would  be  terrible  beyond  conception.  Annihilation  is 
better  than  that.  There  is,  therefore,  no  rational  escape 
from  the  conclusion  that  the  Lord,  man,  and  nature  all 
point  in  one  direction,  to  a  state  of  complete  and  perfect 
human  happiness. 

Our  next  question,  therefore,  is,  How  is  this  happi- 
ness obtained  ?  What  makes  heaven  ?  Obser\'ation, 
experience,  reason,  and  the  Lord  Himself  in  the  Sacred 
Scriptures,  give  one  answer  to  this  question.  Heaven 
essentially  is  a  state  or  condition  of  the  soul,  of  the 
will  and  understanding,  of  the  affections  and  thoughts. 
"  The  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you."  There  is  where 
heaven  begins.  It  must  be  there  or  it  cannot  be  any- 
where else.  Ever)'  faculty  of  man's  nature,  as  we  know, 
was  made  to  be  an  inlet  of  delight,  and  when  all  his 
faculties  of  will  and  understanding  preserve  the  perfec- 
tion into  which  they  were  created,  and  act  in  the  form 
and  order  designed  by  infinite  wisdom,  the  result  must 
be  happiness  and  heaven  according  to  the  measure  and 
degree  of  their  capacity. 


HE  A  VEN. 


243 


The  internal  condition  or  state  is  the  first  essential. 
Witiiout  that  no  external  conditions  or  possessions  wonld 
be  of  any  value.  No  one  can  be  admitted  into  the 
heaven  of  light,  with  its  splendors  and  beauty  of  color 
and  form,  until  the  eye,  which  is  the  kingdom  of  light  in 
the  body,  has  been  formed  in  him  ;  no  one  can  be  ad- 
mitted into  the  kingdom  of  harmony  with  all  its  concord 
of  sweet  sounds,  until  the  organ  of  hearing  has  been 
formed  within  him.  The  same  principle  holds  in  regard 
to  every  sense  and  every  delight.  It  is,  so  far  as  we 
know  or  can  conceive,  a  universal  principle,  a  method  of 
attaining  His  ends  which  the  Lord  always  adopts.  We 
see  it  also  in  all  our  works.  When  men  seek  to  use  the 
power  of  steam  or  falling  water  to  do  their  work,  they 
must  construct  engines  and  wheels  adapted  to  the  nature 
of  the  element  they  use.  When  they  desire  to  get  har- 
mony from  the  idle  wind  they  make  an  organ.  They 
can  get  it  in  no  other  way.  The  sun  cannot  create  har- 
vests of  corn  and  fruit  for  man  until  there  is  some  germ 
or  vegetable  form  for  its  heat  and  light  to  flow  into  and 
awake  to  activity.  So  it  is  with  the  soul.  It  must  be  so 
constituted,  and  must  be  in  such  a  state,  that  it  is  capable 
of  exercising  heavenly  affection,  or  it  can  never  attain 
heavenly  delights.  A  stone  cannot  see  though  the  light 
floods  it ;  it  cannot  feel  though  the  heat  penetrates  it  ;  it 
cannot  hear  though  the  winds  play  all  their  melodies 
over  it.  It  cannot  enter  the  heaven  of  beauty,  of  har- 
mony, of  delight,  because  they  cannot  enter  it.  The 
principles  which  constitute  their  kingdom  are  not  em- 
bodied in  it.  These  are  illustrations  of  the  method  which 
the  Lord  in  His  infinite  wisdom  has  provided  for  the  at- 


244      PA' OG /HESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


tainnient  of  His  ends.  And  the  method  is  universal.  It 
is  grounded  in  the  very  nature  of  things.  We  cannot 
enter  hea\'en  merely  by  going  to  any  place,  or  by  admis- 
sion to  the  society  of  the  angels.  That  would  be  of  no 
use  to  us  whatever  if  we  could  not  receive  the  life  and 
exercise  the  affections  of  the  angels.  What  is  the  use  to 
the  blind  man  of  increasing  the  light  ?  To  enter  heaven 
we  must  be  in  a  heavenly  state. 

What,  then,  is  the  heavenly  state  ?  It  consists  essen- 
tially in  love  to  the  Lord  and  man.  Negatively,  it  is 
freedom  from  sin,  from  impurity,  and  from  falsity.  Posi- 
tively, it  is  the  harmonious  action  of  all  the  faculties  of 
the  soul  in  the  order  established  for  them  by  infinite  wis- 
dom. It  is  for  man  as  a  spiritual  being  what  the  perfect 
action  of  eye  and  ear  are  for  him  as  a  natural  being. 
By  his  senses,  when  they  are  sound,  man  is  admitted 
into  all  natural  delight.  When  his  spiritual  faculties  are 
sound  and  in  true  order,  he  is  admitted  by  them  into  all 
heavenly  and  spiritual  delights. 

This  state  is  called  by  various  names.  It  is  being 
reconciled  to  God.  It  is  making  our  peace  with  Him. 
It  is  being  one  with  Him,  so  that  He  can  dwell  in  us, 
and  we  in  Him.  It  is  believing  on  Him,  loving  Him,  and 
living  according  to  His  commandments.  It  is  a  life  ac- 
cording to  the  order  embodied  in  the  human  soul  by  in- 
finite wisdom  to  carry  it  on  to  the  end  designed  for  it  by 
infinite  love, — that  is,  to  a  state  of  complete  and  ever- 
increasing  haj)])iness. 

We  all,  no  doubt,  agree  that  one  of  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  hea\'en  is  a  heavenly  state  of  the  aflfections  and 
thoughts.    But  if  we  stop  here  we  have  told  only  half  of 


HE  A  VEN. 


245 


the  truth.  No  perfection  of  internal  spiritual  state  would 
secure  our  happiness  unless  there  were  something  with- 
out us  to  call  our  affections  and  various  spiritual  faculties 
into  activity.  Heavenly  happiness  is  not  possible  with- 
out a  substantial  world  in  which  the  heavenly  inhabitants 
dwell.  If  there  were  no  light  the  most  perfect  eye  would 
be  of  no  more  use  to  man  than  a  ball  of  glass  or  an 
empty  socket.  This  is  true  of  all  the  senses.  A  ma- 
terial body  perfectly  organized  in  every  part,  without  an 
external  world  adapted  to  it,  capable  of  flowing  into  it 
and  exciting  its  forms  to  activity,  would  be  entirely  desti- 
tute of  sensation.  Organization  is  only  one  of  the  fac- 
tors of  sensation.  It  is  just  as  impossible  to  produce 
harmony  from  an  organ  in  a  perfect  vacuum  as  it  is  to 
produce  sensation  by  organization  alone.  I  am  certain 
you  will  give  your  assent  to  this. 

The  same  law  applies  to  the  spirit.  You  cannot  think 
without  some  object  to  think  about.  You  cannot  know 
without  something  to  know.  You  cannot  love  without 
some  being  or  thing  objective  or  distinct  from  yourself 
to  love.  The  various  faculties  of  the  soul,  like  the  germ 
of  a  plant,  remain  inactive  until  called  into  play  by  some 
power  or  object  without  or  distinct  from  themselves. 

So,  we  hold,  it  must  be  with  the  soul  in  the  spiritual 
world.  The  spirit  itself  must  be  an  organic  human  form 
or  it  could  not  preserve  its  identity  ;  it  could  not  be  in 
any  state  of  goodness  and  truth,  or  in  any  other  state. 
State  or  condition  is  not  an  abstraction.  It  is  the  form 
and  quality  of  something.  The  state  of  your  health  is 
not  some  abstract  condition  apart  from  your  body.  If 
you  had  no  body  you  would  have  no  health,  and  you 

21* 


246      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


would  be  nobody.  If  the  spirit  had  no  form  and  no  or- 
ganization, it  could  not  be  happy  or  miserable.  To  talk 
of  its  being  admitted  into  -heaven  would  be  absurd,  for 
there  would  be  nothing  to  admit.  To  say  that  it  hears, 
sees,  feels,  can  talk  and  sing,  would  be  contrary  to  the 
nature  of  things. 

No  one  can  see  without  eyes  ;  and  no  one  can  see  with 
eyes  unless  there  is  light  and  some  form  from  which  the 
light  is  reflected.  The  spiritual  world,  therefore,  must 
be  a  real  and  substantial  world.  It  must  comprise  those 
forms  and  objects  which  compose  a  world.  Its  inhabi- 
tants must  be  distinct  from  one  another.  That  world 
must  have  a  sun,  or  there  can  be  no  light.  It  must  have 
an  atmosphere,  or  there  can  be  no  speech,  no  song,  no 
sound,  no  action  of  any  kind.  There  must  be  the  two 
factors,  a  heavenly  state  and  a  heavenly  world,  to  pro- 
duce happiness.  Happiness  is  inconceivable  without 
both.  If  we  deny  substance  and  form  to  man  as  a 
spirit  and  to  the  spiritual  world,  instead  of  securing  con- 
ditions more  favorable  to  human  happiness,  we  have  no 
conditions  at  all.  The  true  way  and  the  only  way, 
therefore,  of  obtaining  a  correct  idea  of  heavenly  hap- 
piness and  the  means  essential  to  securing  it,  is  not  to 
deny  to  man  as  a  spirit  and  to  the  spiritual  world  all  the 
properties,  forms,  and  relations  of  this  world  and  this 
life,  but  to  carry  out  his  state  and  relations  in  this  world 
to  more  perfect  conditions  in  the  other. 

As  a  man  is  a  spirit  in  the  human  form,  he  has,  after 
laying  aside  the  material  body,  all  the  organs,  external 
and  internal,  proper  to  a  human  being.  He  has  eyes 
organized  of  spiritual  substances,  and  he  can  see  spiritual 


HE  A  VEN. 


247 


objects.  He  has  ears,  and  he  can  hear  spiritual  sounds 
and  be  affected  by  spiritual  harmonies.  He  can  taste  and 
feel,  and  enjoy  the  fragrance  of  pleasant  odors.  When 
the  spiritual  body  is  raised  up  or  withdrawn  from  the 
material  body,  a  man  retains  every  sense  he  ever  had. 
Indeed,  his  power  of  sensation  always  belonged  to  the 
spiritual  body,  even  before  it  was  withdrawn  from  the 
material  body.  The  material  body  was  only  the  instru- 
ment the  spiritual  senses  used  to  gain  a  knowledge  of 
material  things,  as  we  use  optical  instruments  to  assist 
the  vision  of  the  naked  eye.  There  was  no  more  change 
wrought  in  the  spiritual  senses  by  discarding  the  material 
organs  than  there  is  wrought  in  the  eye  by  removing  the 
glasses  we  use  to  assist  our  imperfect  vision.  The  spir- 
itual faculties  remain  the  same  in  themselves,  but  they 
come  into  more  favorable  conditions  for  delightful  exer- 
cise. Freed  from  their  material  covering,  they  are  more 
delicate  and  sensitive  to  every  contact  and  relation. 
Their  power  of  sensation  is  indefinitely  increased. 

At  the  same  time  the  whole  human  form  becomes  a 
more  perfect  expression  of  the  beautiful  heavenly  charac- 
ter. Consider  the  law  by  which  this  is  attained.  Any 
affection  by  continued  exercise  fixes  itself  in  the  feat- 
ures and  becomes  embodied  in  the  whole  form.  Care 
ploughs  its  furrows  in  the  face,  sorrow  casts  its  shadows 
over  it,  joy  irradiates  it,  lust  brutalizes  it,  cunning  and 
fear  leave  their  impress  upon  it,  contentment  and  peace 
give  to  it  a  sweet  and  serene  repose.  This  relation  be- 
tween outward  form  and  inward  state  is  more  fully  realized 
when  man  is  freed  from  the  incumbrance  of  the  inert  ma- 
terial body.    He  becomes  the  form  of  his  ruling  affection. 


248      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


His  love  to  the  Lord  and  man  becomes  effigied  in  his  face 
and  in  his  whole  form.  He  becomes  an  embodied  affec- 
tion. His  face  is  moulded  into  its  image.  His  wisdom 
glows  in  his  eyes,  irradiates  his  face,  is  moulded  in  his 
limbs,  sways  all  his  motions  into  graceful  action,  gi\'es 
symmetry  to  his  whole  form,  flows  in  harmony  from  his 
lips,  gives  sweetness  to  his  voice,  and  speaks  in  every 
action.  Instead  of  losing  his  human  form  and  lapsing 
into  a  vital  principle  or  a  formless  vapor,  and  thus  losing 
his  identity  as  a  man,  he  comes  into  a  more  excellent 
human  form  ;  he  becomes  more  distinctly  himself 

The  human  form  contains  all  the  elements  of  beauty 
and  grandeur.  This  human  beauty  is  not  lost  in  heaven. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  indefinitely  enhanced  in  every 
essential  quality.  Infants  and  children  grow  up  in  heaven 
to  the  stature  and  the  perfection  of  adult  life.  The  aged 
find  a  fountain  of  youth  in  heavenly  affections.  The  ma- 
terial body  only  grows  old,  and  men  and  women  in  the 
spiritual  world  soon  return  to  the  full  vigor  of  their  best 
days,  and  continue  to  grow  towards  the  perfections  of 
immortal  youth. 

While  those  who  enter  heaven  continue  to  advance  by 
lovely  paths  towards  immortal  youth,  they  do  not  become 
merged  into  an  indiscriminate  mass.  On  the  contrary, 
every  one  becomes  more  distinctly  himself  A  man  be- 
comes more  distinctly  masculine.  A  woman  becomes 
more  distinctly  a  woman,  and  the  embodiment  of  every 
feminine  grace  and  loveliness, — of  a  grace  and  loveliness 
peculiar  to  herself  The  varieties  of  heavenly  beauty  in- 
crease with  the  number  of  heavenly  inhabitants.  Every 
man  and  every  woman  is  the  embodiment  and  form  of 


HE  A  VEN. 


249 


some  variety  of  goodness.  In  man  the  masculine  quali- 
ties predominate,  in  woman  the  feminine.  The  lines 
between  them  become  more  distinct  in  heaven  than  they 
can  be  on  earth,  and  they  grow  more  distinct  to  eternity. 
Every  one  becomes  more  distinctly  individualized.  Thus 
the  unity  of  heaven  is  not  the  harmony  of  sameness,  but 
of  distinct  and  infinite  variety. 

All  qualities  of  human  beauty  are  combined  in  the 
forms  and  natures  of  the  heavenly  inhabitants, — dignity, 
grace,  sweetness,  purity,  harmony  of  proportion,  elegance 
of  form,  and  loveliness  of  expression.  Swedenborg  has 
given  us  some  pictures  of  those  who  have  passed  from 
earth  to  heaven.  He  had  a  rich  vocabulary  and  he  was 
a  master  of  expression,  but  he  generally  ends  by  saying 
that  their  beauty  is  such  that  no  words  can  express  it,  no 
painter  can  represent  it.  It  is  the  holiest  love,  the  purest 
and  sweetest  charity,  in  living,  glowing,  perfect  form  ;  so 
living  and  speaking  that  it  penetrates  the  hearts  of  the 
beholders. 

This  perfection  of  form  is  the  effect  and  expression  of 
internal  states  of  progress  in  knowledge,  of  growth  in 
goodness.  Truth  is  infinite.  No  finite  man  can  sound 
its  depths  or  exhaust  its  riches.  The  wisest  men  in  this 
life  only  learn  a  few  facts  and  gain  a  knowledge  of  some 
general  principles.  But  the  more  we  know,  the  more  we 
shall  see  that  there  is  to  be  known.  The  horizon  of 
truth  enlarges  as  we  rise.  When  we  pass  into  the  other 
life  we  pass  from  darkness  into  light.  The  intellectual 
faculties  are  freed  from  the  limitations  of  time  and  space 
and  the  imperfections  of  the  material  body,  and  from  the 
hinderance  imposed  by  artificial  language  and  methods. 


250      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

Thus,  while  all  the  faculties  gain  an  immense  increase  in 
power  the  facilities  for  acquiring  knowledge  keep  even 
pace  with  them.  Truth  is  not  learned  by  rote,  and  only 
understood  after  long  and  painful  reflection.  Knowledge 
is  gained  by  intuition.  The  understanding  is  illuminated 
by  Divine  truth,  and  revels  in  its  light  as  in  its  own  native 
sphere.  It  is  continually  surprised  and  delighted  with 
new  discoveries  of  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  Lord. 
It  penetrates  deeper  into  causes,  and  rises  higher  into 
purer  light. 

The  affections  also  enlarge  with  the  intellect,  and  keep 
even  pace  with  it.  This  is  another  source  of  happiness. 
There  is  no  divorce  between  the  head  and  the  heart. 
The  will  and  the  understanding,  so  long  put  asunder  by 
evil  and  falsity,  are  reunited  in  heavenly  marriage,  and 
become  one.  All  that  the  heart  loves,  the  head  sees  and 
the  hands  gain.  There  is  no  conflict  between  the  desires 
and  knowledge.    Attainment  always  equals  expectation. 

Such  a  life  is  so  remote  from  our  observation  or  ex- 
perience in  this  world  that  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  form  any 
just  conception  of  it.  But  what  more  could  we  hope  for 
than  the  attainment  of  such  a  state  ?  To  be  free  from  all 
struggle  between  our  desires  and  our  knowledge  of  duty  ; 
to  be  delivered  from  every  weight  and  shadow  of  the  past ; 
to  see  clearly,  to  love  freely,  to  attain  fully,  and  to  be 
conscious  of  rapidly  advancing  to  new  heights  of  wisdom 
and  larger  measures  of  love,  and  to  know  that  this 
growth,  with  its  delight,  will  continue  with  accelerating 
velocity  forever !  Can  you  ask  more  than  that  ?  Can 
you  conceive  anything  better  than  that  ? 

The  happiness  of  heaven  is  also  greatly  increased  by 


HE  A  VEN. 


the  excellence  of  heavenly  society.  Intelligent  beings 
cannot  come  together  and  live  within  the  influence  of 
one  another  without  forming  society.  Society  is  the  sum 
total  of  the  knowledge,  influence,  power,  and  character 
of  the  individuals  who  compose  it.  If  the  men  and 
women  who  compose  it  are  selfish,  ignorant,  brutish, 
lustful,  fierce,  and  revengeful,  the  society  they  form  will 
be  infernal.  It  is  of  no  consequence  where  they  are. 
Place  them  in  paradise,  and  they  would  soon  change  it 
into  a  hell.  Its  clear  and  sparkling  water  would  become 
a  standing  pool,  breeding  miasma  and  death.  If  the  good 
and  evil  are  mixed,  as  we  find  them  in  this  world,  there 
will  be  the  conflict  of  elements  which  rages  everywhere 
around  us.  If  men  and  women  who  are  intelligent,  pure, 
unselfish,  animated  solely  by  love  to  the  Lord  and  to 
one  another,  live  together,  the  result  will  be  a  heavenly 
society.  Place  them  in  the  foulest  dens,  and  the  filth 
and  vile  odors  and  decay  and  darkness  would  disap- 
pear, the  stagnant  pools  would  vanish,  and  sweetness, 
order,  purity,  comfortable  dwellings,  and  peaceful  activity 
would  soon  take  their  place.  Put  such  a  companv  on 
a  desert  island,  and  they  would  soon  make  it  a  paradise. 
What,  then,  must  be  the  nature  of  a  society  formed  of 
angelic  men  and  women  ?  I  say  angelic  men  and  women 
rather  than  spirits  or  angels,  because  I  want  to  keep  the 
truth  distinctly  before  you  that  the  inhabitants  of  heaven 
are  not  shadows  or  ghosts  or  vital  principles  or  a  hybrid, 
half  bird,  half  woman,  but  real,  substantial  human  beings 
in  human  form,  with  human  affections  and  capacities  for 
human  happiness.  Stretch  your  imagination  to  its  ut- 
most ;  combine  all  you  can  conceive  of  intelligence  and 


252      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

wisdom,  of  dignity  softened  with  grace,  of  strength 
wedded  to  gentleness  and  flowing  into  acts  of  kindness 
and  tender  regard  for  others  ;  the  dignity  of  a  great  na- 
ture united  with  the  docility  and  innocence  of  childhood. 
Imagine  the  men  to  equal,  nay,  to  surpass  in  all  mascu- 
line perfections  the  highest  ideal  of  the  greatest  minds. 
Imagine  the  women  to  equal  the  men  ;  to  be  the  embodi- 
ments of  womanly  wisdom  and  sagacity,  of  strength  put 
to  gentle  uses,  of  quiet  dignity  \  eiled  with  modesty,  of 
gentleness  and  purity  exalted  and  glorified  by  the  free 
play  of  heavenly  affections,  and  the  whole  form  the  living 
image  of  angelic  loveliness.  Could  beings  of  such  natures 
associate  with  one  another  and  not  form  a  heaven? 
Could  human  souls  fired  with  such  heavenly  affections 
and  armed  with  such  amazing  power  fail  to  find  each 
other  ? 

Now,  according  to  Swedenborg,  heaven  is  composed 
of  such  societies.  It  is  not  a  huge  mass  of  formless 
spirits,  nor  is  the  position  of  any  one  fixed  by  arbitrary 
allotment.  The  societies  are  as  numerous  as  the  general 
varieties  of  human  affection,  and  the  members  who  con- 
stitute each  society  are  drawn  together,  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Lord,  by  reciprocal  affinities.  Heaven  is  in  the 
human  form,  in  the  same  sense  that  human  societies  are 
in  the  human  form.  Every  society  must  have  a  head  and 
heart  and  lungs,  mouth  and  hands, — that  is,  it  must  have 
members  who  perform  the  same  office  for  the  society  that 
those  organs  do  for  the  physical  body,  and  there  are  large 
societies  which  perform  these  offices  for  the  race.  In 
heaven  these  societies  are  more  nicely  discriminated  than 
they  can  be  on  the  earth.    There  societies  are  formed  by 


HE  A  VEN. 


253 


those  who  pass  into  the  heavens  from  the  earth,  and 
every  one  is  drawn  to  his  place  by  the  affinities  of  his 
own  nature,  by  the  pecuhar  bias  or  quahty  of  his  affec- 
tions. Every  human  being  is  the  embodiment  of  some 
special  form  of  affection.  The  Lord  never  duphcates 
anything.  No  two  societies  are  aUke,  and  no  two  mem- 
bers of  any  society  are  alike.  The  unitary  life  of  a  so- 
ciety grows  out  of  the  free  play  of  the  harmonious 
varieties  which  compose  it.  There  is  no  sameness  and 
no  dead  level  in  heaven.  There  are  those  there  who 
have  been  members  of  a  heavenly  society  for  thousands 
of  years.  There  are  infants  who  went  up  from  their 
mothers'  arms  to-day.  There  are  young  men  and  women, 
fathers  and  mothers,  whom  we  have  known  and  loved, 
who  have  cast  off  their  earthly  garments  and  have  passed 
on  to  their  homes  in  the  heavens.  Each  has  been  drawn 
to  his  own  society  and  his  own  home  by  the  power 
of  love  ;  he  has  been  welcomed  with  the  most  ardent 
affection,  and  instructed  and  cared  for  with  angelic  wisdom 
and  devotion.  Each  one  has  retained  that  peculiar  char- 
acter which  constitutes  his  identity,  and  has  found  his 
place  according  to  his  character.  All  the  societies  in 
heaven  are  formed  according  to  this  universal  method  of 
Divine  operation. 

Heavenly  employments  are  another  source  of  happi- 
ness. How  are  men  and  women  going  to  spend  their 
eternity  ?  Not  in  singing.  Singing  is  a  very  delightful 
employment,  but  I  think  we  should  all  weary  of  it.  They 
do  sing,  however,  and  play  on  all  kinds  of  instruments, 
and  the  music  is  the  perfect  expression  of  some  affection, 
and  it  awakens  in  every  one  who  hears  it  the  affection 

22 


254     PROGRESS  m  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


which  it  expresses.  Every  heart  responds  and  vibrates 
in  unison  with  the  harmony.  There  are  occasions  when 
society  answers  to  society,  when  myriads  of  voices  and 
myriads  of  instruments  join  in  chorus  to  celebrate  some 
attribute  of  the  Lord's  love  and  wisdom,  and  the  whole 
heaven  flows  into  sweet  and  ecstatic  song.  But  singing 
is  no  more  the  business  of  human  beings  in  the  other 
world  than  it  is  here. 

Nor  do  they  spend  their  time  in  praying  and  perpetual 
worship.  They  have  their  worship  and  their  temples  and 
their  ministers.  Some  know  more  of  the  Divine  love 
and  wisdom  than  others,  and  it  is  the  delight  of  every 
one  to  communicate  his  thought  and  affection  to  others. 
And  they  instruct  with  a  wisdom  of  which  we  can  form 
no  adequate  conception,  and  they  worship  with  a  pro- 
found humility  and  an  ardor  of  devotion  unknown  to  us. 
But  they  have  other  ways  of  showing  their  love  to  the 
Lord.  Here,  again,  Swedenborg  is  consistent  with  him- 
self. He  tells  us  that  the  employments  of  angelic  men 
and  women  are  vastly  more  numerous  than  employments 
on  earth,  but  most  of  them  are  of  such  a  nature  that 
they  cannot  be  described  in  human  language.  Some 
heavenly  employments  are  revealed  by  Swedenborg  and 
in  the  Sacred  Scriptures.  Angels  are  always  attendant 
upon  men,  and  do  all  in  their  power  to  withhold  them 
from  evil  and  lead  them  to  good.  They  watch  over  in- 
fancy and  childhood,  and  breathe  into  the  pliant  natures 
of  the  young  something  of  the  purity  and  beauty  of 
their  own  souls.  They  always  attend  upon  the  dying, 
and  minister  to  every  want  of  the  soul  new-born  into  the 
spiritual  world.    They  instruct  infants  who  die,  and  chil- 


HE  A  VEN. 


255 


dren,  and  the  ig-norant  but  well  disposed  of  all  ages  and 
nations,  in  the  truth,  and  by  all  means  known  to  angelic 
natures  they  lead  them  into  a  heavenly  life.  Being  ani- 
mated solely  by  love  to  the  Lord  and  man,  it  is  their 
highest  delight  to  do  good  to  others  ;  to  communicate 
their  knowledge,  their  affection,  and  their  aid  in  every 
possible  way. 

There  are  also  governments  and  administrations  and 
ministries  of  many  kinds  in  heaven.  They  are  far  more 
numerous  there  than  they  are  upon  the  earth. 

Heavenly  beings  also  have  their  recreations  and  festi- 
vals, their  private  and  public  social  circles.  Kindred 
souls  commune  with  each  other  and  reveal  their  inmost 
natures  ;  friends  meet  with  friends  and  enjoy  the  quiet 
flow  of  affection.  For  those  who  take  pleasure  therein 
there  are  always  subjects  of  profound  study.  Truth  is 
infinite.  The  more  we  know  the  more  we  shall  discover 
there  is  to  be  known.  Some  will  learn  faster  than  others, 
and  will  take  delight  in  communicating  their  knowledge. 
And  as  they  learn  more  of  the  wisdom  and  power  and 
infinite  goodness  of  the  Lord,  they  are  filled  with  a  more 
glowing  love  and  a  deeper  peace. 

That  their  employments  are  more  various  than  ours, 
and  of  a  nature  impossible  to  describe  in  human  language, 
is  consonant  with  reason  and  with  our  own  observation 
of  the  progress  of  human  employments  in  this  world. 
How  impossible  it  would  have  been  a  few  centuries  ago 
to  describe  the  various  employments  of  men  at  the  pres- 
ent time  !  They  were  not  known.  There  were  no  words 
to  describe  them.  It  must  be  that  in  a  state  of  life  so 
remote  from  this  as  that  in  which  angels  dwell  there  must 


256      PJ^OGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

be  employments  and  relations  impossible  for  us  to  express 
or  conceive. 

One  thing,  however,  we  must  not  forget  :  there  is  no 
labor  in  heaven.  There  are  employments,  activities ; 
there  is  service,  help,  use  ;  but  there  are  no  repulsive 
tasks,  no  exhausting  toil,  no  weary  limbs,  no  aching 
head,  no  distracted  mind.  Every  one  does  that  which 
he  can  do  best,  and  which  he  delights  to  do.  His  heart, 
his  head,  his  whole  life  is  in  his  use.  His  love,  wisdom, 
and  power  increase  with  exercise.  He  loves  more,  can 
do  more,  and  enjoys  more  in  every  step  he  takes  than  he 
did  in  the  one  which  preceded  it.  And  so  every  man 
and  woman  who  enters  heaven  will  go  on  forever. 

The  essence  of  all  this  heavenly  happiness  is  the  love 
to  the  Lord  and  the  neighbor  which  fills  every  angel's 
heart.  Every  one  loves  others  more  than  himself  There 
can  be  no  heaven  where  there  is  no  love  to  the  Lord  and 
man. 

In  going  from  this  world  to  heaven  we  go  from  the 
unreal  to  the  real  ;  we  go  from  obscurity  into  light,  from 
shadow  to  substance,  from  sameness  to  variety,  from  de- 
formity to  beauty,  from  the  artificial  to  the  essential,  from 
confusion  to  order,  from  discord  to  harmony,  from  pov- 
erty to  wealth,  from  restraint  to  freedom,  from  disap- 
pointment, labor,  weariness,  disease,  pain,  fear ;  from 
tears  and  sorrow  to  fruition,  to  joy,  peace,  and  blessed- 
ness ;  from  a  foreign  land  we  go  to  friends,  to  kindred, 
to  home,  to  the  Lord. 


CHILDREN  IN  HEAVEN. 


"All  thy  children  shall  be  laughl  of  the  Lord  ;  and  great 
shall  be  the  peace  of  thy  children^ — Isaiah  liv.  13. 

A  MONG  the  many  wonderful  things  revealed  to  men 


concerning  the  spiritual  world,  none  are  more  inter- 
esting to  a  parent  than  those  which  relate  to  the  condition 
of  infants  and  children  in  that  life.  There  are  but  few 
parents  who  must  not  feel  a  personal  interest  in  this  sub- 
ject, for  there  are  not  many  who  have  not  been  called 
upon  to  surrender  one  dear  object  of  affection  to  the 
Great  Shepherd  of  souls.  As  the  poet  has  beautifully 
sung, — 


A  third  part  of  the  human  race  die  in  infancy  and 
childhood.  A  third  part  of  heaven,  therefore,  must  con- 
sist of  those  who  have  left  the  earth  in  the  morning  of 
life.  For  all  infants  and  children,  of  whatever  parents, 
whether  Christian  or  heathen,  go  to  heaven  and  become 
angels. 

I  say  become  angels,  for  they  enter  the  spiritual  world 
as  they  leave  this.    They  have  the  .same  form,  the  same 
infantile  and  childish  nature  ;  they  are  as  ignorant  and 
helpless.    The  only  change  that  has  taken  place  is  their 
r  22*  257 


"  There  is  no  flock,  however  watched  and  tended. 
But  one  dead  lamb  is  there  , 
There  is  no  fireside,  howso'er  defended, 
But  has  one  vacant  chair." 


258      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

withdrawal  from  the  material  body  and  consequent  open 
introduction  into  the  spiritual  world.  They  need  the 
watchful  care  and  instruction  of  others  as  much  as  if 
they  had  remained  in  this  world.  But  the  Lord  does  not 
leave  them  orphaned  and  helpless  ;  He  makes  provision 
for  their  wants.  They  are  all  "taught  of  the  Lord," 
not  directly,  but  mediately. 

Infants  are  committed  to  the  care  of  those  angels  who 
love  them  with  a  purer,  wiser,  and  more  ardent  affection 
even  than  their  own  mothers.  It  may  be  difficult  for  a 
mother  to  believe  that  any  one  can  love  her  child  as  well 
as  she  does.  But  there  is  much  that  is  selfish,  worldly, 
and  weak  in  parental  affection.  It  does  not  always  lead 
us  to  consult  the  best  good  of  the  child.  Parents  them- 
selves are  ignorant,  and  do  not  know  how  to  guide  their 
children  right.  They  are  in  evil  and  falsities,  and  do  not 
know  what  is  the  highest  good.  They  are  deceived  by 
the  fallacies  of  time  and  sense,  and  they  sacrifice  the 
children's  spiritual  and  eternal  good  for  some  temporal 
gratification.  But  it  is  not  so  with  the  angels.  Their 
love  is  not  mixed  with  any  alloy  of  self  They  look  only 
to  the  real  good  of  those  infant  angels  who  are  committed 
to  their  care.  Their  love  is  not  a  weak  and  erring  nat- 
ural affection,  but  a  pure,  strong,  and  unchanging  love, 
gentler  and  tenderer  than  ever  warmed  the  heart  of  any 
mother  on  earth  ;  a  love  that  never  falters,  never  wearies, 
that  broods  over  and  cherishes  in  its  warmth,  and  gently 
calls  into  action  all  the  latent  powers  of  the  children,  as 
the  warm  breath  of  spring  wooes  from  the  seed  the  tender 
bud  and  beautiful  l)lossoms  of  the  plant.  Not  only  is 
every  want  supplied  more  fully  and  tenderly  than  any 


CHILDREN  IN  HE  A  VEN. 


259 


mother  on  earth  could  supply  it,  but  every  possible  pro- 
vision is  made  for  the  children's  comfort  and  happiness. 
They  are  ministered  to  by  a  perfect  love,  that  has  wisdom 
and  skill  and  power  to  carry  into  effect  all  its  desires. 

Nor  do  children  in  heaven  seem  to  themselves  to  be 
among  strangers.  Many  a  mother's  heart  has  been 
grieved  at  the  thought  that  her  child  should  be  removed 
from  the  bosom  of  the  family  and  placed  among  strangers. 
She  cannot  but  think  that  her  little  one  will  miss  her  and 
pine  for  her,  even  though  it  dwells  with  the  angels.  But 
it  is  not  so.  The  child  does  not  go  among  strangers. 
The  angels  to  whose  care  it  is  now  openly  committed 
have  always  been  watching  over  it.  It  has  always  been 
in  their  society.  It  was  by  their  ministry  that  it  first 
awoke  to  conscious  life  ;  it  was  their  sweet  influence  that 
e.xcited  the  first  smile  ;  it  was  their  life  that  flowed  into 
the  mother's  heart  and  formed  its  image  in  the  mother's 
face,  and  created  the  attraction  between  the  child's  and 
the  mother's  life.  Thus  the  child  sees  faces  that  are 
already  familiar.  The  longings  of  its  heart  are  satisfied. 
It  feels  at  home  ;  it  lacks  nothing  ;  no  want  of  its  nature 
is  unsupplied. 

Infants  and  children  are  not  committed  to  the  angels  in 
general.  Each  one  is  a  special  trust  to  some  one  angel. 
Each  child  is  committed  to  some  one  angel  who  is  the 
best  fitted  of  all  who  dwell  in  the  heavens  to  take  charge 
of  it.  Children  differ  in  genius  and  character,  and  so  do 
the  angels .  And  that  one  of  all  who  dwell  in  the  heavens, 
who  is  best  suited  to  the  peculiar  disposition,  and  best 
able  to  touch  the  secret  springs  of  character  in  each  child, 
is  selected  to  take  care  of  it.    Infants  are  committed  to 


26o      PROGRESS  IS  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


the  care  of  the  celestial  angels,  who  are  the  very  forms  and 
embodiments  of  innocence  and  love.  They  take  them 
to  their  own  bosoms,  tender  and  glowing  with  heavenly 
affections,  and  educate  them,  dev'elop  their  powers  in 
heavenly  order  and  harmony  until  they  arrive  at  a  state 
when  their  wants  demand  a  different  culture.  They  are 
then  transferred  to  others,  and  thus  tlieir  wants  are  al- 
ways supplied. 

As  infants  go  into  the  spiritual  world  as  infants,  and 
children  as  children,  they  need  instruction.  They  gain 
no  knowledge  by  this  change  of  worlds.  They  do,  how- 
ever, gain  more  favorable  conditions  for  acquiring  it. 
They  are  freed  from  the  clog  and  weight  of  the  material 
body.  They  have  a  spiritual  body,  still  in  the  same  child- 
like form,  but  it  is  not  enveloped  in  a  material  body. 
It,  therefore,  moves  with  greater  freedom  and  develops 
more  rapidly.  It  does  not  become  wearied  so  soon,  and 
is  freed  from  the  weakness  and  disease  of  our  material 
natures. 

The  child  is  now  in  a  world  where  all  things  are  more 
real,  substantial,  and  perfect  to  every  sense.  The  senses 
are  far  more  acute  and  subtile  in  their  powers  ;  every- 
tliing  is  in  a  clearer  light  and  appears  in  a  more  distinct 
form,  and  all  the  forces  that  flow  into  the  soul  arc  more 
powerful,  and  move  it  to  a  more  intense  and  vigorous 
life.  Every  faculty  has  a  freer  play  and  a  wider  range 
and  a  truer  direction.  So  great  is  the  change  that  it  is 
difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  human  language  to  describe 
it.  Its  most  fitting  representative  is  the  change  in  the 
state  of  the  earth  from  winter  to  summer.  The  young 
soul  throws  off  all  its  torpor  and  coldness  ;  all  its  faculties 


CHILDREX  IN  HEA  VEN. 


261 


are  called  into  play,  and  unfold  like  the  plant  when  the 
earth  is  warm  and  tremulous  with  the  inflowing  life  of  a 
summer  sun. 

Children  in  the  spiritual  world  are  much  more  easily 
instructed  than  in  this  world,  because  they  have  formed 
no  bad  habits  and  imbibed  no  false  principles  which  op- 
pose the  truth.  We  see  that  these  obstacles  are  very 
great,  but  they  are  much  greater  than  we  suppose.  In- 
struction here  is  very  often  the  blind  leading  the  blind. 
False  principles  are  actually  inculcated  ;  corrupt  and  de- 
structive ends  are  directly  sought  ;  evil  habits  are  con- 
firmed, the  understanding  perverted,  and  the  heart  cor- 
rupted. And  when  the  good  seed  is  sown  it  falls  on 
stony  ground  or  in  the  hard-trodden  paths  of  natural, 
worldly  life,  where  it  cannot  take  root.  The  greater  part 
of  our  education  has  no  reference  to  our  spiritual  nature. 
In  the  opinion  of  the  world,  a  man  may  be  highly  edu- 
cated and  refined  ;  he  may  be  learned  in  all  the  sciences 
and  classics,  and  yet  be  totally  blind  to  the  first  principles 
of  spiritual  truth.  He  may  even  deny  that  there  is  a 
spiritual  world  and  that  he  has  a  soul.  The  most  of  our 
education  consists  of  instruction  in  natural  things,  and  it 
is  directed  to  worldly  ends.  And  these  selfish  and 
worldly  influences,  which  are  opposed  to  a  true  spiritual 
life,  begin  to  operate  upon  us  in  infancy,  and  follow  us 
all  along  in  our  education,  so  that,  when  we  come  to 
teach  or  to  learn  spiritual  things,  we  find  the  ground  pre- 
occupied. We  have  to  contend  against  these  false  prin- 
ciples and  habits.  We  have  much  to  unlearn,  which  is 
far  more  difticult  than  to  learn.  But  this  is  not  the  case 
with  our  children  who  ha\'e  been  removed  to  the  spiritual 


262      PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


world.  They  are  not  taught  anything  which  they  have 
to  unlearn.  Every  step  is  an  advance  towards  a  higher 
state.  They  are  not  enticed  away  by  evil  examples,  but 
all  influences  conspire  to  help  them  on,  to  unfold  their 
natures  in  heavenly  order. 

Children  in  heaven  are  not  educated  alone,  but  with 
other  children  of  a  similar  genius  and  state.  Children 
are  social.  They  are  never  so  happy  as  when  they  can 
mingle  freely  with  those  of  a  similar  disposition.  In  the 
spiritual  world  all  the  innocent  and  sportive  principles  of 
their  nature  have  free  play. 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  methods  of  instruction,  the 
skill  of  the  teachers,  and  the  truths  taught  are  as  much 
superior  as  the  state  of  their  minds  to  receive  instruction 
and  the  conditions  in  which  they  are  placed.  They  are 
taught  nothing  but  the  truth,  and  truth  which  relates  to 
life.  They  are  taught  that  the  Lord  is  their  Father,  and 
that  they  receive  every  good  from  Him.  They  are  also 
taught  the  nature  of  charity,  or  mutual  love,  and  its  duties. 
They  are  taught  how  to  live  the  life  of  heaven,  and  are 
continually  initiated  into  the  practice  of  what  they  learn. 
They  do  not  commit  the  truth  to  memory,  but  to  life. 
They  have  no  hard  lessons  to  learn  for  future  practice. 
But  they  learn  to-day  the  lessons  they  need  to  live  to- 
day. Instruction  is  spiritual  food  and  drink.  As  we 
cannot  eat  for  a  distant  future,  so  the  children  in  heaven 
cannot  be  instructed  for  the  future.  They  receive  their 
food  day  by  day.  It  is  also  exactly  adapted  to  their 
wants  and  apprehension.  Their  life  is  unfolded  in  true 
order.  There  is  no  forcing  of  the  mind.  Progress  in 
knowledge  is  more  like  the  growth  of  a  plant.    The  bios- 


CHILDREN  IN  HEA  VEN. 


263 


som  is  not  sought  before  the  leaf,  nor  the  fruit  before  the 
blossom.  The  angels  have  the  most  exquisite  perception 
of  the  state  of  those  they  instruct,  and  they  touch  with 
the  utmost  delicacy  and  skill  the  secret  springs  of  the 
will  and  understanding. 

The  lives  of  these  heavenly  children  are  also  unfolded 
from  within.  Freed  from  the  restraints  and  heavy  encum- 
brance of  the  body,  every  organ  in  their  tender  spiritual 
forms  is  free  to  move  in  harmony  with  the  inflowing  of 
life  from  the  Lord,  which  comes  to  them  from  within. 
Here  we  learn  facts  and  store  them  up  in  the  memory, 
and  then  compare  and  arrange  them,  and  thus  by  slow 
and  laborious  processes  acquire  some  knowledge.  But 
in  the  spiritual  world  it  is  not  so.  There  outward  things 
exactly  correspond  and  represent  the  states  of  thought 
and  affection  within,  because  they  are  formed  from  them. 
Thus  children  in  heaven  see  their  own  life  as  in  a  mirror 
in  all  things  around  them . 

They  are  led  to  knowledge  by  their  delights.  All  their 
activities  flow  from  love,  and  instruction  is  given  to  gratify 
that  love,  to^  answer  its  questions,  to  satisfy  its  wants. 
We  can  gain  some  idea  of  this  state,  for  we  see  some- 
thing similar  to  it,  though  in  a  much  lower  form,  in  the 
insatiable  curiosity  of  children  in  this  life.  Suppose  that 
curiosity  to  be  increased  many  degrees,  and  to  be  excited 
only  by  those  things,  or  those  subjects,  which  are  true 
and  good,  and  suppose  it  to  be  in  our  power  to  satisfy  it, 
to  answer  all  its  questions  so  fully,  to  explain  and  illustrate 
all  it  sought  to  know  so  clearly  that  every  step  would  be 
clear  and  definite,  and  firmly  planted  in  the  path  of  life, 
and  every  desire  satisfied.    And  suppose  this  to  be  done 


264      PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


without  any  weariness  to  the  young  soul,  without  blunt- 
ing the  keen  edge  of  its  curiosity,  but  rather  sharpening 
it  and  giving  it  more  strength  for  higher  knowledge, 
would  not  that  be  the  perfection  of  instruction  ?  This  is 
the  state  of  all  children  in  the  spiritual  world.  Their  in- 
tellectual faculties  are  excited  to  action  by  their  affections, 
and  thus  they  are  constantly  led,  and  not  driven.  Their 
faculties  are  all  called  into  harmonious  exercise,  and  their 
exercise  is  play,  yet  with  all  the  good  and  substantial 
results  of  the  most  patient  and  laborious  effort. 

Instruction  can  be  given  there  also  by  methods  alto- 
gether beyond  the  power  of  any  earthly  teacher.  It  is 
found  here  that  maps,  charts,  diagrams,  and  apparatus 
for  visible  illustration  are  most  efficient  "aids  in  the  com- 
munication of  scientific  truth.  With  a  planetarium  we 
place  before  the  eyes  of  the  pupil  the  relative  size  and 
motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  ;  we  spread  out  the  earth 
before  him,  and  in  various  ways  represent  the  customs 
and  character  of  the  people,  and  the  nature  and  forms  of 
vegetable  and  animal  life.  But  we  are  limited  on  all 
sides  by  the  imperfection  of  the  materials  we  must  use 
and  by  our  own  power  to  use  them.  In  the  spiritual  world 
there  are  not  these  limitations.  All  its  substances  yield 
to  the  plastic  forces  of  the  affections  and  thoughts  more 
readily  than  the  most  fluent  materials  to  the  hand  of 
man.  Every  affection  is  represented  to  the  life  in  forms 
that  actually  correspond.  Thus  instruction  is  not  so 
much  verbal  as  pictorial  and  representative.  They  have 
not  merely  pictures  of  visible  objects  that  exist  in  other 
places,  but  representations  of  affections  and  thoughts  or 
principles  and  processes  of  spiritual  life. 


CHILDREN  IN  HE  A  VEN. 


265 


Suppose,  for  example,  tliat  an  an^el  wished  to  teach  a 
company  of  young  children  the  nature  of  innocence.  In- 
stead of  a  verbal  description,  which  they  must  commit  to 
memory,  and  which  then  might  not  be  understood,  they 
would  be  surrounded  by  all  those  forms  which  represent 
innocence,  as  by  lambs  and  kids  and  the  young  of  various 
animals  and  birds,  and  beautiful  infants,  all  sporting  to- 
gether in  perfect  peace,  harmony,  and  delight.  The  whole 
atmosphere  would  seem  to  be  alive  with  beautiful  forms, 
and  the  earth  itself  filled  with  living  objects  which  repre- 
sented to  the  life  innocence  in  its  various  kinds,  degrees, 
and  relations.  Everything  that  appeared  would  be  the 
actual  correspondent  of  some  form  of  innocence.  Inno- 
cence itself  would  pass  before  the  children  like  a  pano- 
rama in  a  thousand  true  and  beautiful  forms,  and  they 
would  perceive  the  meaning  of  all  these  things. 

Thus  the  children's  natures  are  unfolded  in  heaven  in 
true  order  and  symmetry.  The  affections  and  the  intel- 
lect go  hand  in  hand.  To  love  is  to  know,  and  knowl- 
edge is  the  form  of  love,  and  both  are  embodied  in  use, 
in  life  ;  and  thus  the  whole  nature,  from  centre  to  circum- 
ference, is  filled  with  ever-increasing  delight. 

Swedenborg  says  it  was  granted  to  him  to  see  little 
children  most  charmingly  attired,  having  garlands  of 
flowers  resplendent  with  beautiful  and  heavenly  colors 
twined  about  their  breasts  and  tender  arms.  ' '  And 
once,"  he  says,  "to  see  them,  with  those  who  have 
charge  of  them,  in  company  with  maidens,  in  a  paradisal 
garden  most  beautifully  adorned,  not  so  much  with  trees 
as  with  arbors  and  covered  walks  of  laurel,  and  with 
paths  leading  inward.  And  when  the  little  children  en- 
M  23 


266 


PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


tered,  dressed  as  I  have  described,  the  flowers  over  the 
entrance  shone  forth  most  joyously.  From  this  it  may 
be  manifest,"  he  adds,  "what  dehghts  they  have,  and 
also  that  by  these  pleasant  and  delightful  things  they  are 
introduced  into  the  goods  of  innocence  and  charity,  which 
are  thus  continually  instilled  into  them  by  the  Lord." 

What  a  beautiful  sight  must  such  a  company  of  chil- 
dren be  in  the  spiritual  world  !  Surrounded  by  all  things 
of  a  loveliness  and  beauty  corresponding  to  their  own 
beautiful  natures  ;  without  a  weakness  or  a  pain  or  a 
single  cloud  of  sorrow  to  overshadow  their  sunny  hearts, 
rosy  with  perfect  health,  elastic,  graceful,  and  vigorous  in 
the  harmonious  development  of  every  organ  and  power  ; 
innocent,  lovely,  and  loving  in  all  their  intercourse,  their 
faces  shining  with  heavenly  affections  and  delights,  their 
voices  soft  and  sweet  with  celestial  harmonies,  and  their 
whole  forms  glowing  with  the  Divine  life  and  becoming 
the  actual  embodiment  of  it  ;  no  clouds  abo\  e  them,  no 
inharmonious  and  unsightly  objects  around  them,  no  fear 
of  coming  evil,  no  regrets,  no  tears,  and  not  a  jar  in  the 
harmony  of  their  natures  ;  clothed  in  heavenly  garments 
of  a  beauty  corresponding  to  their  intelligence,  they  are 
beauty,  joy,  innocence,  peace,  purity,  not  only  personi- 
fied, but  actually  embodied  in  form. 

Would  you  who  have  children  in  these  heavenly  nur- 
series call  them  back  into  this  world,  imprison  them  in 
the  material  body,  shut  them  up  in  our  dark  dwellings, 
expose  them  to  the  contagion  of  corrupt  examples,  and 
subject  them  to  our  imperfect  guidance  and  instruction  ? 
Much  as  you  desire  to  have  them  bodily  and  visibly  with 
you,  you  could  not  do  it.    No.    It  is  well  with  them. 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ANGELS  TO  INFANCY. 


"  Take  heed  thai  ye  despise  not  one  of  these  little  ones  ;  for  I 
say  unto  y OH,  That  in  heaven  their  angels  do  always  behold  the 
face  of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven." — Matthew  xviii.  lo. 

T^HE  relations  we  sustain  to  angels  and  departed  spirits 


are  frequently  referred  to  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures. 
Their  presence  with  men  and  their  influence  in  human 
affairs  is  described  as  intimate  and  powerful.  Many  in- 
stances are  given  in  the  Old  and  in  the  New  Testament 
of  the  appearance  of  angels  to  men  and  of  the  services 
they  rendered  to  them.  They  gave  them  instruction  on 
occasions  of  great  difficulty  and  danger.  They  came  as 
messengers  from  the  Lord  to  make  known  His  will  and 
to  announce  the  coming  of  great  events.  They  protected 
men  from  impending  danger  ;  they  delivered  them  from 
bondage  and  led  them  into  tlie  ]5romised  land  ;  they 
showed  their  deep  interest  in  human  afi"airs  on  many  oc- 
casions and  in  many  ways  during  the  whole  of  human 
history  as  recorded  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures. 

But  the  prevailing  belief  in  the  Christian  world  has 
been  and  still  is,  that  these  are  exceptional  instances  ; 
that  the  homes  of  the  angels  are  remote  from  this  world, 
and  that  they  come  to  us  only  in  some  great  exigency  to 
bring  an  important  message,  or  render  a  service  that  re- 
quires supernatural  wisdom  and  power,  and  that  when 
that  service  is  rendered  they  leave  us,  put  off  the  human 


267 


268 


PROGRESS  /A'  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


form  which  they  assumed  for  the  occasion,  and  return  to 
their  bright  homes  in  heaven. 

But  the  Sacred  Scriptures  reveal  a  different  and  much 
more  comforting  doctrine.  They  declare  that  the  Lord 
gives  His  angels  charge  over  us  to  keep  us  in  all  our 
ways.  In  full  accordance  with  what  the  Lord  reveals  to 
us  in  His  Word,  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  teach 
us  that  angels  and  spirits,  who  are  regenerated  men  and 
women  and  children  born  upon  the  earth,  are  always 
with  us  ;  that  they  are  far  more  closely  connected  with 
us  than  our  most  intimate  friends  who  are  still  with  us 
in  the  flesh,  and  that  they  are  always  on  the  alert  to  pro- 
tect us  from  danger  and  to  render  us  any  service  we  will 
receive  at  their  hands.  Being  spirits,  they  cannot  mani- 
fest themselves  to  our  natural  senses,  and  never  did  in 
olden  times.  The  veil  of  the  senses  was  drawn  aside,  and 
the  spiritual  sight  of  prophets  and  apostles  was  opened 
to  see  the  angels  in  their  own  permanent  forms.  The 
coming  and  going  of  these  heavenly  messengers  was  an 
appearance  due  to  changes  wrought  in  men.  Spirit  can 
only  reveal  itself  consciously  to  spirit.  Innumerable 
forces  are  constantly  acting  upon  us  and  rendering  us 
the  most  important  services,  of  which  we  have  no  direct 
consciousness.  We  cannot  see  them  or  hear  their  voice 
or  touch  their  substance.  The  force  we  call  gravity  is 
constantly  drawing  us  to  the  earth,  but  we  cannot  see 
it  or  touch  it,  and  it  utters  no  sound.  One  medium 
reveals  itself  to  the  eye  in  the  form  of  light,  but  can 
awake  no  consciousness  in  the  ear  or  touch.  Another 
fills  the  ear  with  harmonies,  but  is  powerless  to  gain  any 
recognition  from  the  eye.    We  live  and  move  in  the 


THE  AI/N/STA'Y  OF  ANGELS  TO  INFANCY.  269 

midst  of  an  ocean  of  the  most  subtile  forces  which  sweep 
through  us  and  have  a  most  potent  influence  upon  us, 
which  are  indeed  essential  to  our  existence,  but  of  which 
we  have  no  sensible  knowledge.  It  is,  therefore,  per- 
fectly in  accordance  with  the  Divine  methods  of  creating 
human  beings  and  developing  their  affections  and  intel- 
lectual faculties  that  the  most  powerful  influences  may 
ojierate  upon  us  without  revealing  themselves  to  the 
senses. 

We  cannot  communicate  any  knowledge  to  our  little 
ones  in  the  first  stages  of  existence  by  word  or  deed. 
We  can  render  them  the  most  important  service,  but 
they  do  not  know  it.  The  mother  is  related  to  the  new- 
born child  much  as  the  angels  are.  The  little  one  lies 
unconscious  between  them.  The  mother  reaches  it  and 
ministers  to  it  from  the  material  side,  the  angels  from  the 
spiritual  side  of  its  nature.  Gradually  the  natural  con- 
sciousness is  opened.  The  infant  begins  to  recognize 
natural  objects,  to  be  consciously  affected  by  natural 
forces.  Its  natural  faculties  develop  and  gain  power.  It 
recognizes  those  who  minister  to  it.  The  mother's  smile 
awakes  an  answering  smile.  The  mother's  features  grow 
familiar  and  the  faces  and  voices  of  friends  can  be  distin- 
guished from  those  of  strangers.  But  it  will  be  many 
years  before  it  will  recognize  the  voice  and  the  glorious 
beauty  of  its  angels  who  have  watched  over  it  with  more 
tenderness  and  assiduity  and  a  purer  affection  than  the 
mother's.    The  veil  of  flesh  must  first  be  removed. 

Two  classes  of  beings  bend  over  every  cradle,  each 
to  render  their  own  special  service.  The  mother  gives 
natural  sustenance,  protects  from  natural  danger,  to  win 

23* 


270      P/^OGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


into  power  and  conscious  action  the  natural  faculties  ;  the 
angels  keep  watch  and  ward  to  protect  the  little  one  from 
spiritual  dangers,  to  cherish  and  wake  into  action  by  their 
brooding  love  the  tender  germs  of  spiritual  and  heavenly 
affections  which  they  have  assiduously  planted,  and  to 
impress  upon  them  the  innocence,  the  order,  the  beauty, 
and  the  harmony  of  heaven.  This  is  a  service  essential  to 
the  child's  regeneration.  By  this  means  are  formed  the 
germs  of  the  heavenly  nature  and  of  all  the  spiritual  fac- 
ulties. These  germs  become  the  vessels  for  the  recep- 
tion of  life  from  the  Lord.  The  angels  who  plant  them, 
guard  them  and  assiduously  cultivate  them  and  use  all 
their  heavenly  skill  and  patience  and  tenderness  and 
power  to  give  them  conscious  existence  and  a  controlling 
influence  in  the  conduct  of  life.  They  do  not  despise  or 
neglect  one  of  these  little  ones.  The  mother  may  grow 
weary,  but  they  never  tire  ;  the  mother  may  be  selfish 
and  worldly  and  ignorant  and  neglect  the  little  ones,  but 
their  angels  regard  them  with  unselfish  and  unchanging 
affection.  They  possess  a  wisdom  born  of  Divine  love, 
and  they  know  how  to  touch  the  most  hidden  and 
delicate  springs  of  the  children's  nature  ;  to  bend,  to 
cherish,  to  mould  their  tender  forms  into  the  Divine 
image  and  likeness  with  a  skill  beyond  our  conception. 
Through  their  instrumentality  the  Lord  photographs 
His  image  upon  the  purest  substances  of  their  being, 
substances  that  are  exquisitely  sensitive  to  all  heavenly 
impressions  and  adamant  to  retain  them.  These  forms 
are  the  Divine  patterns  after  which  the  whole  nature  is  to 
be  moulded  ;  they  are  the  heavenly  ideals  which  go  ever 
before  us,  become  our  inspiration  and  our  hope,  and 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ANGELS  TO  INFANCY.  271 


lead  us  ever  onward  and  upward  towards  the  Lord.  As 
there  are  in  the  germ  of  every  seed  the  pattern  of  the 
plant  which  grows  from  it,  and  some  shaping  power 
which  infallibly  moulds  every  form  of  branch,  leaf,  blos- 
som, and  fruit  into  its  own  likeness  and  qualities,  so  the 
heavenly  principles  inseminated  by  the  angels  contain 
within  them  the  promise  and  potency  of  every  heavenly 
good.  Like  the  germ  of  the  plant  in  the  seed,  they  may 
never  be  brought  into  actual  and  conscious  existence. 
They  may  be  neglected  and  left  to  lie  dormant.  By  the 
development  of  selfish  and  worldly  affections  stumbling- 
blocks  may  be  put  in  their  way  and  obstructions  to  their 
development  may  be  formed,  which  render  their  birth 
and  growth  impossible.  They  may  be  despised,  as  they 
often  are  from  ignorance  of  their  nature  or  unbelief  in 
their  existence.  But  the  fact  remains  a  fact  of  such  mo- 
mentous importance  that  we  who,  nominally  at  least, 
believe-  in  the  constant  presence  of  these  pure  and 
glorious  beings  who  stand  ready  to  co-operate  with  us  in 
every  effort  for  our  children's  happiness,  ought  to  give 
heed  to  the  warning  of  our  Lord  contained  in  our  text. 

I  know  with  what  incredulity  men  regard  the  assertion 
of  the  constant  presence  of  the  angels.  To  aid  our 
dull  and  doubting  minds,  let  us  consider  for  a  moment 
the  plain  and  legitimate  meaning  of  our  Lord's  words. 

"  Their  angels. "  Whose  angels?  Theirs,  the  angels 
of  the  little  ones.  A  little  boy  was  sitting  in  the  midst 
of  the  disciples  as  a  representative  of  all  the  little  ones  : 
our  Lord  referred  to  his  angels.  Is  this  a  random  or  an 
idle  phrase?  What  can  it  mean,  if  children  have  not 
angels  suited  to  their  genius,  who  wait  upon  them  and 


272      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


are  ready  at  all  times  to  render  them  every  possible  ser- 
vice ?  Can  we  give  any  other  meaning  to  the  words  ? 
Look  at  the  logical  force  of  the  declaration.  The  Lord 
had  placed  a  little  child  in  the  midst  of  the  disciples 
and  declared  it  to  be  the  type  of  true  greatness.  Then 
He  warned  them  against  offending  or  placing  any  hin- 
derance  in  the  way  towards  heaven  of  one  of  these  little 
ones.  He  declared  that  it  is  profitable  to  cut  off  the 
right  hand  or  pluck  out  the  right  eye  and  cast  them 
away  if  they  cause  us  to  offend  one  of  these  little  ones, 
or  stand  in  the  way  of  their  spiritual  growth.  Then  He 
gave  the  warning,  "Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one 
of  these  little  ones  ;  for  I  say  unto  you,  That  in  heaven 
their  angels  do  always  behold  the  face  of  my  Father 
which  is  in  heaven."  If  the  angels  who  stand  nearest 
the  Lord,  the  purest,  the  loveliest,  and  the  wisest  created 
beings,  are  constantly  devoted  to  the  service  of  the  little 
ones,  can  we  despise  them  ?  The  Lord  presents  it  as  a 
reason  why  we  should  not  despise  them,  that  their  angels 
do  always  or  through  everything  behold  the  face  of  His 
Father  who  is  in  heaven.  Let  us  consider  the  force  of 
this  reason.  But  to  see  its  full  weight  we  must  under- 
stand what  is  meant  by  their  angels  always  beholding 
the  face  of  the  Father. 

The  flice  is  the  clearest  and  fullest  inde.x  of  the  mind. 
It  is  the  theatre  on  which  the  fears  and  hopes,  the  joys 
and  sorrows,  the  desires  and  passions,  and  all  the 
thoughts  and  affections  act  their  parts  and  reveal  them- 
selves to  others.  It  is  formed  i)y  the  spirit  for  this  pur- 
pose, and  every  feature  has  a  distinct  part  to  perform 
in  the  great  drama  of  life.     Its  organs  are  few,  and  yet 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ANGELS  TO  INFANCY.  273 

singly  or  in  combination  they  exjDress  with  miraculous 
precision  the  intelligence  and  ever-changing  emotions  of 
the  soul.  Sorrow  casts  a  shadow  over  the  face  like  a 
cloud,  joy  lights  it  up  like  a  burst  of  sunshine,  intelli- 
gence shines  in  the  eye,  love  beams  from  every  feature, 
shame  crimsons  the  cheek,  suspicion  lurks  in  the  eye, 
pity  trembles  in  the  lips,  anger  knits  the  brow,  passion 
inflames  every  feature.  Every  shade  of  intelligence  and 
every  degree  of  feeling  shifts  the  scenes  to  a  correspond- 
ing form  to  suit  its  purpose.  It  is  the  office  of  the  face 
to  represent  the  soul.  This  is  acknowledged  by  common 
consent,  and  is  instinctively  expressed  in  human  speech. 
To  turn  away  the  face  denotes  aversion  of  affection  ;  to 
hide  or  cover  the  face,  concealment  of  purpose  or  with- 
holding favor  ;  to  face  a  difficulty  is  to  meet  it  firmly  and 
with  composure  ;  to  turn  the  face  to  one,  to  lift  up  the 
face,  is  to  regard  with  favor. 

From  this  office  of  the  face  it  is  used  in  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  to  express  the  disposition  of  the  Lord  towards 
men.  He  is  said  to  hide  His  face, — "  Hide  not  thy  face 
from  thy  servant,"  prays  the  Psalmist ;  to  turn  away  His 
face,  to  set  His  face  against  the  wicked,  to  lift  up  His 
face,  to  cause  His  face  to  shine  upon  His  servant.  Men 
are  exhorted  to  seek  His  face  and  to  come  before  His 
face.  Many  similar  expressions  are  used  to  express  the 
feelings  with  which  the  Lord  regards  men.  His  relations 
to  them.  His  attitude  towards  them.  The  face  of  the 
Lord  stands  as  the  symbol  and  representative  of  His  love 
and  wisdom,  as  a  man's  face  is  the  representative  of  the 
love  and  wisdom  and  various  attributes  of  his  character. 

Now  we  may  be  able  to  see  what  must  be  the  charac- 
s 


274      PROGRESS  AV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


ter  of  the  angels  to  whom  are  committed  the  Uttle  ones, 
and  all  the  spiritual  principles  in  the  human  mind  which 
the  little  ones  represent.  The  translation  of  the  words 
which  our  Lord  used  does  not  express  the  meaning  of 
the  original  quite  clearly.  ' '  Behold' '  should  be,  look 
at  ;  and  ' '  always' '  should  be,  through  everything.  The 
passage  would  then  read,  "Take  heed  that  ye  despise 
not  one  of  these  little  ones ;  for  I  say  unto  you,  That  in 
heaven  their  angels  through  everything  look  at  the  face 
of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven  ;"  that  is,  through 
everything  and  in  everything  they  see  the  love  and  wis- 
dom of  the  Lord.  They  are  themselves  so  innocent,  so 
wise,  so  pure,  so  filled  with  the  Divine  love,  and  every 
thought,  desire,  affection,  and  purpose  is  so  conformed  to 
the  Divine  image  and  likeness  that  every  motion  of  their 
souls  is  in  harmony  with  the  Lord.  They  look  to  Him 
and  regard  Him  in  everything.  They  are  wise  with  His 
wisdom,  they  are  strong  with  His  strength,  they  are  kind 
with  His  kindness,  they  are  patient  with  His  patience,  they 
are  skilful  to  touch  the  secret  springs  of  human  life  and 
to  evolve  heavenly  faculties  from  their  first  germs  with 
His  skill.  As  in  a  mirror  they  see  His  face  in  the  begin- 
nings of  the  human  soul;  they  see  some  reflection  of  His 
image  in  every  instrumentality  employed  for  its  develop- 
ment, and  with  some  gift  of  His  wisdom  know  how  to 
use  it.  They  have  a  keen  perception  of  the  bearing  of 
every  influence,  of  the  varying  changes  of  every  state 
upon  the  character.  Nor  is  their  ministry  an  occasional 
and  fitful  one.  They  do  not  come  on  special  occasions 
and  go  when  the  exigency  is  passed.  They  never  weary, 
they  are  constant  in  their  service  ;  they  come  as  near  as 


THE  iMIXISTKY  OF  ANGELS  TO  INFANCY.  275 

possible  to  every  one,  and  render  every  service  in  their 
power.  They  regard  the  highest  ends  in  all  their  watch- 
ing and  waiting  and  humble  service.  They  look  at  the 
face  of  the  Lord  ;  they  watch  its  growing  or  fading  image 
in  the  soul.  They  seek  with  angelic  affection  and  wis- 
dom to  bring  it  out  in  clearer  lines,  to  develop  it  into 
more  distinct  and  substantial  form.  With  what  infinite 
skill  and  tenderness  and  patience  they  do  their  work  ! 
They  engage  in  it  from  no  mercenary  motives  ;  they  are 
not  hired  servants.  They  minister  with  patient  assiduity 
from  love  to  the  Lord  and  the  little  ones  who  have  just 
commenced  their  endless  journey,  from  a  heavenly  desire 
to  aid  the  father  and  mother  in  this  heavenly  service. 

Think  of  it  !  Try  to  bring  it  home  to  yourselves  as  a 
reality  !  Two  parties  in  two  worlds  separated  only  by 
the  thin  veil  of  flesh  are  engaged  in  the  care  and  nurture 
of  your  child.  As  the  mother  does  her  work  the  angels 
do  theirs.  The  mother  cares  for  the  body,  the  angels 
for  the  soul.  The  mother  seeks  to  awaken  the  slumber- 
ing natural  faculties  into  conscious  and  vigorous  action  ; 
the  angels,  to  call  into  existence  the  germs  of  the  spirit- 
ual faculties  which  in  due  time  will  introduce  the  child 
into  a  new  world,  and  give  him  capacities  to  receive  the 
Divine  life  in  higher  and  richer  forms.  So  the  wise  and 
faithful  mother  and  the  wiser  and  more  faithful  angels 
walk  side  by  side  invisible  to  each  other,  but  regarding 
the  same  object,  and  with  affections  directed  to  the  same 
end.  Each  one  is  helping  the  other  ;  each  one  is  doing 
a  work  essential  to  the  natural  and  spiritual  growth  of 
the  little,  helpless  pilgrim  just  landed  upon  the  shores  of 
life.    Is  it  not  a  beautiful  and  comforting  thought  that 


276      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOIVLEDGE. 


every  mother  has  such  devoted  heavenly  servants  to 
co-operate  with  her  ?  '  When  you  look  at  the  little  one 
lying  helpless  in  your  arms,  is  it  not  encouraging  to 
know  that  it  is  nurtured  and  strengthened  with  forces 
ministered  by  unseen  but  skilful  hands  without  which  it 
would  fade  and  vanish  away  ?  Your  ears  are  too  dull  to 
hear  the  music  of  their  speech  ;  your  sight  is  too  dim  to 
see  the  heavenly  beauty  of  their  faces.  But  when  the 
little  one  smiles  it  is  not  only  in  answer  to  your  love, 
but  to  theirs.  The  opening  faculties  which  are  watched 
with  so  much  interest  and  delight  are  awakened  by  the 
angels,  who  cherish  the  children  in  their  own  bosoms, 
and  give  of  their  own  life  to  them.  The  little  ones  have 
no  power  in  themselves  to  live  and  grow.  Parents  can- 
not give  them  this  power.  It  comes  from  within  ;  it 
has  its  constant  origin  in  the  Lord,  but  in  one  direction 
it  comes  through  the  angels.  It  flows  from  them  as  a 
sphere  of  love  which  is  life. 

But  the  infant  is  itself  a  .symbol  and  beautiful  exponent 
of  the  beginnings  of  a  multitude  of  distinctly  spiritual 
faculties  in  every  mind,  which  are  inseminated  by  the 
Lord  as  mere  possibilities,  which  have  their  immutable 
laws  and  essential  means  of  growth,  which  require  the 
skilful,  constant  watchfulness  and  the  tender  nurture  of 
angelic  wisdom.  Every  one  who  gains  eternal  life  must 
be  born  from  above.  As  the  perverted  natural  mind  is 
first  developed,  these  little  ones  from  heaven  are  born  in 
the  midst  of  enemies  ;  they  are  like  lambs  among  wolves  ; 
they  are  like  infants  hated,  rejected,  and  left  to  perish  by 
cruel  parents.  If  there  were  no  help  from  within,  there 
would  be  no  hope  of  safety.     If  tlicre  were  no  truths 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ANGELS  TO  INFANCY.  277 


planted  in  the  natural  mind  to  serve  as  a  basis  and  means 
of  support,  as  ground  in  which  heavenly  principles  can 
take  root  ;  if  no  gentle  and  innocent  affections,  no  holy 
and  heavenly  states,  were  treasured  up  in  the  will  in  the 
beginning  of  life,  there  would  be  no  possibility  of  regen- 
eration. Birth  from  above  would  be  as  impossible  as  the 
growth  of  a  seed  whose  naked  germ  was  planted  in  the 
frozen  ground.  By  calling  into  action  good,  innocent, 
natural  affections  in  our  children,  we  are  giving  motion 
to  the  natural  faculties  that  are  in  harmony  with  the 
spiritual  faculties  hereafter  to  be  born  ;  we  are  giving 
them  the  key-note  to  heavenly  harmonies.  And  as  no 
impression  upon  any  mind  is  ever  obliterated,  as  no 
motion  is  ever  effected,  no  state  awakened,  which  mav 
not  be  called  up  again  into  conscious  action  however 
long  it  may  have  remained  quiescent,  there  is  a  pos- 
sibility that  heavenly  light  may  penetrate  the  natural 
darkness,  that  heavenly  affections  may  find  some  wel- 
come in  the  hostile  natural  mind,  that  heavenly  har- 
monies may  awaken  the  memory  of  some  corresponding 
affection  planted  by  the  angels  in  infancy,  to  vibrate  in 
unison  with  it.  In  this  way  and  by  these  means  the 
spiritual  gets  a  foothold  in  the  natural,  and  extends  its 
power  until  every  false  and  evil  affection  is  subdued,  the 
enemies  are  driven  out  of  the  holy  land  of  the  soul,  and 
the  heavenly  inhabitants  gain  peaceful  and  everlasting 
possession. 

Such  is  the  immeasurable  importance  of  early  impres- 
sions. Such  is  the  work  which  the  angels  to  whose  care 
the  souls  of  our  children  are  committed  are  in  the  con- 
stant effort  to  accomplish.    Is  not  the  thought  of  this 

24 


278      PJiOGRESS  m  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


heavenly  help  encouraging  in  our  efforts  to  correct  the 
evils  which  are  constantly  appearing  in  our  children  ?  Is 
it  not  a  comfort  and  a  hope  when  we  grow  weary,  that 
we  have  such  faithful,  wise,  and  powerful  assistants  ? 
Will  you  not  find  it  an  additional  motive  to  be  faithful 
to  the  trust  committed  to  you,  and  to  appreciate  more 
highly  the  value  of  every  step  you  take  for  these  little 
ones  ?  When  you  see  their  smiling  faces,  think  of  the 
Lord's  words,  "Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one  of 
these  little  ones."  Why?  Because  so  great  is  their 
worth  that  they  are  objects  of  special  interest  to  the 
angels.  They  are  not  alone  ;  you  are  not  alone.  Their 
angels  who  through  everything  look  at  the  face  of  the 
Lord,  are  present  and  ready  to  work  with  you  in  every 
effort  for  their  spiritual  and  eternal  good. 

But  these  words  of  warning  and  hope  are  not  limited 
in  their  application  to  parents  ;  they  apply  with  equal 
directness  and  force  to  every  one  who  is  trying  to  over- 
come evil  and  live  a  heavenly  life.  There  are  germs  of 
heavenly  principles  in  every  mind  that  are  struggling  for 
e.xistence.  They  come  to  our  notice  only  occasionally. 
They  seem  to  be  remote  from  our  life  ;  their  voice  may  be 
feeble  and  only  faintly  heard  in  the  din  of  worldly  affairs  ; 
they  appear  to  be  of  but  little  importance  compared 
with  the  natural  interests  that  clamor  for  our  attention. 
We  do  not  appreciate  their  importance,  and  too  often 
despise  them.  They  have  many  obstacles  to  overcome  ; 
we  put  many  stumbling-blocks  in  their  way.  But  they 
are  of  more  precious  value  than  any  other  possession. 
They  are  not  only  greater  than  any  or  all  natural  posses- 
sions, but  they  arc  the  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 


THE  M/A'/STRY  OF  ANGELS  TO  INFANCY.  279 

Our  angels  dwell  in  them  ;  they  operate  upon  us  by- 
means  of  them.  Their  love  flows  into  them,  and  by  them 
they  seek  to  lead  us  to  heaven. 

By  means  of  these  little  ones  they  lift  us  up  from  sen- 
sual and  natural  things  ;  with  gentle  but  constant  attrac- 
tion they  draw  us  away  from  the  love  of  self  and  the 
world,  and  seek  to  turn  us  to  the  Lord.  They  see  in  all 
these  germs  of  heavenly  life  the  face  of  our  Heavenly 
Father,  and  they  seek  to  bring  it  out  into  greater  dis- 
tinctness and  into  permanent  forms.  They  fight  our 
battles  for  us  ;  they  bring  us  sustenance  when  we  are 
famished  and  faint  by  the  way  ;  they  give  us  strength  in 
our  weakness,  comfort  in  our  sorrow,  and  hope  in  our 
despair. 

Is  it  not  a  comfort  to  know  that  we  have  such  kind, 
patient,  powerful,  wise  ser\'ants  to  help  us  in  the  most 
difficult  and  important  work  of  life,  and  that  they  are  not 
far  away  in  some  remote  region  of  the  universe?  They 
are  here  to-day.  They  stand  close  to  us,  separated  only 
by  the  thin  veil  of  flesh.  They  dwell  with  us  in  our 
homes  ;  they  walk  with  us  by  the  way  ;  they  go  with  us 
to  our  business  and  our  pleasure  ;  they  watch  over  us 
when  we  sleep,  and  stand  ready  to  serve  us  when  we 
wake.  The  bond  of  conjunction  with  us  is  these  germs 
of  heavenly  character  which  it  is  the  mission  and  joy  of 
the  angels  to  assist  in  becoming  angels  like  themselves. 
In  view  of  these  considerations,  we  can  see  how  momen- 
tous is  the  Lord's  warning,  "  Take  heed  that  ye  despise 
not  one  of  these  little  ones." 

In  conclusion,  there  is  another  application  of  this  truth 
which  it  may  be  useful  for  us  to  consider.    The  church 


28o      PROGRESS  JX  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


is  our  spiritual  mother.  Every  society  of  the  church 
bears  this  intimate  and  tender  relation  to  all  the  children 
of  its  members  and  to  every  one  within  the  circle  of  its 
influence  who  is  awakening  to  the  consciousness  that  he 
is  a  spiritual  being.  To  every  society  the  Lord  says, 
' '  Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one  of  these  little  ones  ; 
for  I  say  unto  you,  That  in  heaven  their  angels  do  always 
behold  the  face  of  my  Father."  It  is  hard  for  us  to 
realize  that  the  little  children  and  those  who  are  just 
being  born  from  above  deserve  our  special  and  most 
tender  care,  and  that  we  should  take  heed  that  we 
despise  not  one  of  these  little  ones.  When  the  Lord 
sets  a  little  child  in  the  midst  of  a  society  He  commits  it 
to  the  care  of  that  family  of  the  church,  and  asks  every 
member  of  that  family  to  co-operate  with  Him  and  His 
angels  in  protecting  it  from  harm,  in  providing  it  with 
spiritual  clothing  adapted  to  its  condition  and  food  suit- 
able for  its  nourishment.  We  are  too  much  inclined  to 
direct  our  efforts  and  our  care  to  those  who  in  some  way 
can  jirovide  for  themselves.  But  we  must  not  despise 
the  little  ones,  who  need  our  help  more  than  others. 
Our  instruction  should  be  adapted  to  their  wants  ;  we 
should  make  sjjecial  provision  to  awaken  their  interest 
and  call  their  tender  spiritual  faculties  into  play.  We 
should  surround  them  with  influences,  as  far  as  possible, 
that  will  tend  to  develop  their  spiritual  faculties.  We 
must  co-operate  with  their  angels  to  make  them  tlie  chil- 
dren of  our  Heavenly  Father,  by  doing  our  work  on  this 
side  of  life  as  thoroughly  and  wisely  as  possible.  It  is 
the  most  important  work  given  us  to  do.  It  is  the  most 
important  use  to  which  we  can  devote  our  time  and 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  AiXGELS  TO  INFANCY.  281 

money  and  strength.  It  should  fill  our  hearts  with 
strength  and  hope  and  joy  that  we  have  such  lovely  and 
faithful  and  glorious  helpers.  They  are  with  us  in  every 
effort  we  make  for  the  children.  Every  affection  of  love 
for  this  use  is  the  effect  of  their  pure  breath  flowing  into 
our  souls,  every  thought  is  the  gift  of  their  wisdom. 
They  go  with  us  step  by  step  in  everything  we  do  to 
bring  the  little  children  to  the  Lord,  that  He  may  take 
them  up  in  His  arms  and  bless  them. 


24* 


NATURE  A  DIVINE  LANGUAGE. 


"All  thy  works  shall  praise  thee,  O  Lord.'' — Psalm  cxlv.  lo. 

C  VERY  work  is  stamped  with  the  impress  of  its 
maker.  The  changes  which  men  have  wrought  in 
the  natural  world  are  the  ultimation  of  their  thoughts. 
Every  intelligent  being  is  at  all  times,  and  by  all  modes 
in  his  power,  striving  to  project  himself  from  himself,  and 
to  fix  his  spiritual  form  in  the  ultimate  forms  of  material 
life.  His  body  is  but  the  granite  and  the  marble  rendered 
fluent  and  cast  into  the  mould  of  his  spiritual  form,  and 
so  perfectly  cast  that  it  is  the  exact  form  of  the  real  man. 
There  is  no  part  of  the  body  which  does  not  speak.  The 
character  is  not  only  indicated  by  the  size  and  configura- 
tion of  the  head,  but  it  is  written  on  every  organ.  The 
foot  and  the  hand  speak.  The  gesture,  the  gait,  the 
posture,  the  quality  of  the  voice,  the  nose,  the  lips,  the 
chin,  the  neck  and  chest  are  as  truly  types  and  expres- 
sions of  the  man  as  the  head,  the  eye,  and  the  spoken 
word. 

The  influence  of  character  extends  beyond  the  body 
and  puts  its  mark  upon  the  objects  of  the  world  about 
us.  Indeed,  the  body  has  been  formed  only  as  a  means 
to  an  end.  It  is  the  instrument  by  which  the  soul 
strives  to  .subject  all  material  things  to  its  power  and  to 
transform  them  to  its  own  likeness.  The  Indian  dwells  in 
primeval  forests,  and  shares  his  life  with  the  bear  and  the 
282 


NATURE  A  DIVINE  LANGUAGE.  283 

wolf,  because  his  nature  is  dark  and  solitary,  and  he  finds 
in  all  things  which  surround  him  types  of  his  own  cruel, 
sombre,  and  crafty  soul.  The  Arab  of  to-day  is  the  Ish- 
maelite  of  bygone  centuries,  and  he  is  content  with  his 
lot  because  he  finds  in  the  patient  camel,  the  fierce  lion, 
and  the  burning,  desolate,  and  shifting  sands  the  ex- 
ponents of  his  own  enduring,  ferocious,  and  unstable 
nature.  But  put  a  new  thought  into  one  of  these  stereo- 
typed sons  of  the  desert  or  forest,  and  you  will  soon  see 
it  playing  through  him  and  working  changes  in  his  ex- 
ternal condition.  What  is  it  that  has  so  changed  the 
whole  face  of  nature  on  this  continent  during  the  last  two 
centuries  ?  Has  not  this  been  done  by  the  instrumentality 
of  new  spiritual  conditions  ?  The  men  who  succeeded 
the  Indian  had  ideas  of  fixed  habitation,  of  the  comforts 
of  home,  of  society  and  government.  They  loved  the 
sunlight,  variety  in  food  and  clothing  ;  they  had  tastes 
to  gratify  of  which  their  rude  predecessor  knew  nothing  ; 
they  preferred  the  domestic  animals — the  cow,  the  ox,  the 
sheep — to  the  wolf,  bear,  and  panther  ;  the  forest  which 
had  stood  for  centuries  bowed  before  them  and  passed 
away,  and  in  its  place  were  found  waving  wheat-fields 
and  the  golden  corn.  The  comfortable  home  displaced 
the  wigwam,  and  the  school-house,  the  church,  and  the 
legislative  hall  the  council-fires. 

But  this  was  only  the  first  step  in  the  transformation. 
The  soul  finds  her  wants  to  be  continually  multiplying. 
Herself  not  subject  to  the  laws  of  time  and  space,  she 
wishes  to  free  her  servant  the  body  also  from  these 
bonds  ;  and  to  accomplish  this  she  sets  the  hand  at  work 
and  forms  the  steam-engine  and  the  railroad.     But  even 


284      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


this  is  not  sufficient,  and  she  compels  the  hghtning  to 
ride  express  for  her  and  make  known  her  wishes  and 
wants,  and  by  these  means  slie  contrives  to  make  herself 
ubiquitous.  Should  we  enumerate  all  the  improvements 
of  modern  times,  all  the  achievements  of  science,  we 
should  find  they  are  but  material  types  of  the  human 
soul.  She  has  hard  elements  to  deal  with,  but  she  is  in- 
vincible, and  she  makes  the  rock  and  the  ore  and  the 
fickle  wind  and  the  vmstable  sea  plastic  to  her  hand  and 
obedient  to  her  will.  She  reproduces  herself  in  lower 
forms,  and  makes  everything  utter  her  name  and  char- 
acter. 

Now,  if  this  is  true  of  man,  finite  and  feeble  as  he  is, 
blind  to  his  own  necessities  and  his  noblest  capacities, 
how  much  more  must  it  be  true  of  Him  who  is  the  proto- 
type of  all  things,  and  in  whose  all-embracing  power  and 
wisdom  the  universe  is  more  plastic  than  the  clay  in  the 
hands  of  the  potter  !  If  man  reproduces  and  ultimates 
himself  in  all  his  works  ;  if  trade,  commerce,  mechanism, 
agriculture,  literature,  music,  art,  are  but  so  many  im- 
ages of  himself,  so  many  tongues  by  which  he  utters  his 
wants,  his  affections,  his  hopes  and  loftiest  conceptions, — 
if  all  man's  works  praise  or  condemn  him,  must  it  not  be 
much  more  true  that  the  whole  universe  is  a  Dix  ine  sym- 
bolism of  the  infinite  Creator's  perfections?  Does  not 
day  unto  day  utter  speech  and  night  unto  night  show 
knowledge  ?  Do  not  all  His  works  praise  Him  ?  Does 
not  every  created  thing  have  some  voice  to  utter  in 
making  known  His  wisdom,  power,  and  love?  If  man 
cannot  change  the  forms  of  material  things,  make  a  nail, 
or  a  shoe,  or  an  engine,  or  a  book,  or  a  picture,  as  he  surely 


NATURE  A  DIVINE  LANGUAGE. 


cannot,  without  leaving  his  own  mark  upon  it,  can  we 
concei\  e  it  possible  that  God  could  create  the  world,  and 
man,  and  all  the  complicated  relations  which  they  sustain 
to  each  other,  without  transcribing  Himself  into  His 
works  ?  Such  a  supposition  would  be  contrary  to  all  the 
observation  and  experience  of  men.  It  would  involve 
the  absurdity  of  making  the  Creator  act  from  a  power 
and  wisdom  which  He  does  not  possess. 

It  is  a  prexalent  opinion  that  general  truths  alone  are 
taught  in  the  creation.  Just  as  there  is  an  idea  of  a  gen- 
eral providence,  while  a  particular  providence  is  denied. 
But  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  there  can  be  anything 
general  without  the  particulars  which  compose  it.  It  is  a 
mathematical  axiom  that  the  whole  is  equal  to  the  sum  of 
all  its  parts  ;  but  the  common  idea  involves  the  absurdity 
that  there  can  be  a  whole  without  parts.  There  can  be 
no  general  truth  without  the  specific  truths  which  make 
up  the  general  one,  just  as  there  can  be  no  house  without 
the  rooms  which  compose  the  house.  There  can  be  no 
such  natural  object  as  the  earth  without  the  various  min- 
erals which  compose  it.  There  could  be  no  natural  body 
without  the  head,  trunk,  limbs,  bones,  cartilages,  muscles, 
veins,  and  arteries  which  compose  it.  We  must  conclude, 
then,  that  if  the  wisdom  of  God  is  manifested  in  the  uni- 
verse in  a  general  way,  there  must  be  in  the  various  parts 
of  it  those  particular  truths  which  constitute  wisdom,  for 
wisdom  is  not  simple,  but  wonderfully  complex.  Infinite 
wisdom  must  embrace  the  knowledge  of  all  things  in  all 
their  relations,  and  everything,  both  as  a  whole  and  in 
all  its  parts,  must  bean  expression  of  the  Creator's  char- 
acter, a  revelation  of  Himself  in  the  most  external  plane 


286      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOVVLEDGE. 


of  life.  Thus  the  term  ' '  nature' '  is  exactly  significant 
of  the  objects  to  which  it  is  applied,  literally  meaning 
that  which  is  born.  The  natural  world  is  born  of  the 
spiritual,  and  it  is  a  revelation,  an  embodiment  in  finite 
forms  of  the  infinite  perfections  of  the  Creator. 

All  can  see  that  the  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God  ; 
that  in  a  most  general  way  all  the  Lord's  works  have 
relation  to  His  love  and  wisdom.  But  we  wish  to  go 
farther.  We  wish  to  know  what  the  world  says  about 
His  love  and  wisdom  ;  and  to  learn  these  specific  truths 
we  must  question  particular  objects.  The  Lord  has  in- 
scribed His  love  and  wisdom  in  indefinite  variety  of 
form  and  quality  upon  all  His  works,  the  dew-drop  and 
the  leaf  and  the  microscopic  insect  containing  traces  of 
His  limitless  power  and  love  as  truly  as  a  world  or  man. 
Each  object  speaks  a  ditlerent  message.  Everything  in 
the  universe  that  is  in  true  order  expresses  some  particular 
of  the  Lord's  love  and  wisdom. 

And,  further,  if  all  natural  objects  are  types  of  the 
Divine  perfections,  they  are  also  a  mirror  in  which  man 
can  see  himself  reflected,  for  man  was  created  in  the 
image  and  likeness  of  God  ;  consequently,  what  is  a  rep- 
resentation of  the  one  will,  in  some  sense,  be  a  repre- 
sentation of  the  other.  But  I  wish  only  to  confirm  this 
truth,  that  the  creation — what  we  call  "nature" — is  a 
Divine  language,  both  as  a  whole  and  in  all  its  parts,  in 
which  the  Lord  expresses  Himself 

Let  us  notice  some  of  the  qualities  and  characteristics 
of  this  language,  and  perhaps  we  cannot  do  it  in  a  better 
way  than  by  comparing  it  with  the  artificial  language  of 
men.  We  have  a  very  erroneous  and  superficial  idea  of  the 


NATURE  A  DIVINE  LANGUAGE. 


287 


essential  nature  of  language.  It  is  so  familiar  to  us  as  the 
vehicle  of  thought  that  we  are  too  apt  to  think  of  it  as 
thought  itself,  as  something  coeval  with  the  existence  of 
man,  and  in  every  possible  condition  of  his  existence 
essential  to  his  happiness  and  improvement.  But  in  this 
we  are  deceived  by  appearances.  Language  in  itself  is 
artificial,  mechanical,  and  dead.  It  is  but  the  counter 
by  which  the  real  coin  is  represented.  It  is  the  dead 
fragments  broken  from  the  living  forms  of  nature,  the 
dried  leaves  and  flowers  that  once  were  fragrant  and 
beautiful  with  the  glow  of  life.  In  its  origin  it  is  all  de- 
rived from  the  natural  world,  and  from  the  relations  its 
various  objects  sustain  to  one  another  and  to  man.  The 
very  word  "language"  comes  from  the  name  of  the  or- 
gan by  the  aid  of  which  it  is  spoken, — the  tongue.  If 
we  could  trace  every  word  to  its  origin  we  should  find 
that  it  had  its  beginning  in  the  motions,  changes,  and 
accidents  of  external  things,  and  that  the  terms  used  to 
describe  these  natural  relations  were  gradually  transferred 
to  the  operations  of  the  spiritual  man.  The  natural  re- 
lation between  words  and  the  thoughts  they  represent 
has  in  most  cases  been  lost,  and  there  is  now  little  but 
a  conventional  connection.  But  the  natural  world  is  a 
thought  in  material  form.  The  Divine  love  and  wisdom 
flow  into  it,  while  it  is  fluid  and  plastic  to  the  spirit,  and 
its  simplest  and  most  complex  forms  are  the  exact  repre- 
sentation of  the  influent  life. 

Again,  it  requires  many  words  to  express  one  idea  of 
thought,  and,  words  being  conventional  and  having  no 
necessary  connection  with  the  idea,  the  proper  words  are 
not  always  suggested,  even  if  they  are  known.  Words 


2  58      PROGRESS  AV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


dwell  in  the  memory,  and  even  when  there  they  are  not 
always  prompt  to  come  at  the  bidding  of  the  will.  There 
are  but  few,  perhaps  none,  who  have  a  perfect  command 
of  language,  and  even  if  one  had  this  gift  he  could  not 
express  himself  fully.  As  a  common  currency,  a  kind 
of  small  change,  verbal  language  answers  very  well  for 
the  purposes  of  common  life,  for  business,  and  the  inter- 
change of  those  affections  and  thoughts  which  lie  nearest 
the  surface  of  our  nature.  But  how  do  we  stammer  and 
ejaculate,  and  even  become  speechless,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  some  overmastering  passion  ;  and  how  impossi- 
ble do  we  find  it  to  express  the  nicer  shades  of  thought 
and  affection  !  The  delicate  texture  of  our  higher  emo- 
tions is  destroyed,  and  the  true  aroma  of  life  vanishes  by 
translation  into  speech,  and,  as  I  have  before  said,  we 
get,  in  words,  only  the  dead  forms  of  what  was  fresh  and 
living  in  the  soul.  Who  ever  expressed  himself  as  fully 
in  words  as  in  actions  ?  Our  affection  and  thought  flow 
forth  in  a  full  and  continuous  stream  into  our  actions, 
while  in  speech  we  hesitate,  and  stammer  forth  only  a 
few  fragments  of  what  is  full  and  perfect  w-ithin.  The 
best  book  is  but  a  dried  mummy  compared  with  the  full, 
rich,  living  soul  that  penned  it. 

The  primeval  man  had  no  artificial  speech.  Spoken 
and  written  language  came  with  man's  degeneracy.  In 
his  innocence  he  was  in  harmony  with  nature.  Every- 
thing which  he  saw  around  him  was  the  perfect  utterance 
of  his  Father's  love  and  wisdom,  and  the  projection  of 
himself.  There  was  a  chord  within  that  answered  to 
every  key  without.  There  was  an  inherent,  natural,  and 
necessary  relation  between  himself,  the  outward  world, 


NATURE  A  DIVIXE  LANGUAGE. 


289 


and  its  Author,  and  it  was  not  necessary  for  man  to 
speak  or  reason.  He  perceived  and  knew.  He  looked 
through  natural  forms  to  the  living  principles  which  they 
represented.  Just  as  when  we  see  the  name  or  form  of 
one  dear  to  us,  we  do  not  rest  in  the  name  or  form,  but 
pass  on  immediately  to  the  qualities  which  it  suggests. 

Such  was  the  language  of  nature  to  man  in  his  inno- 
cence, and  the  language  has  never  changed.  It  is  as 
full  and  perfect  now  as  it  ever  was,  but  we  have  lost  our 
knowledge  of  it.  It  is  our  mother  tongue,  but,  like 
erring  children,  we  have  wandered  into  strange  lands, 
among  barbarous  people,  until  we  have  lost  the  memory 
of  nature's  speech,  and  we  have  been  compelled  to  resort 
to  the  harsh  jargon  and  imperfect  utterance  of  an  arti- 
ficial language. 

Artificial  language  is  limited  on  every  side.  Having 
no  meaning  but  what  common  consent  gives  it,  its  shal- 
low depths  are  soon  exhausted.  It  is  so  devoid  of  neces- 
sary precision,  and  so  imperfect  a  vehicle  of  thought, 
that  it  has  been  wittily  said  that  it  was  given  to  man  to 
conceal  his  thoughts.  How  different  is  this  from  the 
language  of  nature  !  That  is  limited  only  on  one  side, — 
by  our  power  to  understand  it.  It  has  a  kind  of  self- 
adjusting  power  by  which  it  adapts  itself  to  every  state. 
The  child  sees  something ;  he  is  delighted  with  the 
beauty  which  lies  on  the  surface,  rejoices  in  the  smiles, 
or  is  terrified  at  the  frowns  of  nature.  The  philosopher 
sees  farther.  He  strives  to  look  into  the  causes  and  re- 
lations of  things,  but  the  knowledge  of  the  simplest  nat- 
ural object  was  never  yet  and  never  will  be  exhausted. 
When  one  depth  is  explored  another  opens,  and  thus  we 
N      /  25 


290      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


are  led  on  from  deep  to  deep  until  men  of  the  highest 
genius  have  been  compelled  to  acknowledge  that  they 
were  only  children  gathering  shells  upon  the  shore,  while 
the  vast  ocean  lay  unexplored  beneath  them. 

Again,  our  language  is  divided  into  innumerable  dia- 
lects, so  that  a  lifetime  is  not  sufficient  to  learn  the  speech 
of  all  men.  But  there  are  no  dialects  in  nature.  It  is 
the  mother  tongue  of  man.  It  speaks  to  him  in  every 
age  and  clime  and  condition.  Even  now,  when,  as  I 
have  said,  he  has  lost  the  particular  meaning  of  natural 
things,  he  still  feels  a  mysterious  sympathy  with  them. 
He  is  bound  by  invisible  ties  to  everything  around  him, 
and  he  feels  that  the  same  power  which  throbs  in  nature 
vibrates  through  him.  The  poets  and  men  of  fine  or- 
ganization and  delicate,  sensitive  natures  have  ever  de- 
lighted to  ascribe  to  nature  a  powerful  influence  over 
their  own  hearts.  But  it  is  felt  by  every  one.  The  blue 
sky  filled  with  the  splendors  of  the  sun,  or  gemmed  with 
innumerable  stars,  overarches  all  on  the  round  globe, 
and  fills  the  mind  of  the  rude  savage  as  well  as  the  Chris- 
tian with  a  sense  of  the  power  and  glory  of  the  Lord. 
The  flower  and  the  dew  and  the  stream  and  the  ever- 
changing  beauty  which  plays  over  the  face  of  the  world 
glide  into  the  hearts  of  all,  carrying  a  balm  for  the  torn 
and  bleeding  heart,  strength  for  the  weary,  hope  for  the 
despairing,  and  a  deeper  delight  to  the  rejoicing.  The 
lone  Indian  hears  the  voice  of  the  Great  Spirit  in  the 
roaring  cataract,  and  stops  to  worship. 

Finally,  words  are  ever  changing  in  their  meaning. 
New  meanings  are  constantly  being  added  to  them,  and 
old  ones  are  becoming  obsolete.    But  nature  is  the  fresh 


NATURE  A  DIVINE  LANGUAGE.  291 

and  living  thought  of  the  Creator,  for  it  exists  only  by  a 
vital  connection  with  Him.  Thus,  in  whatever  aspect 
we  view  it,  we  see  the  immense  disparity  between  these 
two  modes  of  expression.  There  is  the  same  difference 
which  we  find  everywhere  between  the  work  of  the  Lord 
and  the  work  of  man.  The  one  is  perfect  in  its  kind  and 
degree,  rising  towards  the  Infinite  and  glowing  with  His 
influent  life  ;  the  other  limited  on  every  side,  shallow, 
cold,  and  dead. 

I  have  attempted  to  show  from  various  considerations 
that  the  natural  world  must  be  a  Divine  language,  ex- 
pressive of  the  Divine  love  and  wisdom  ;  that  each  nat- 
ural object  must  have  a  specific  meaning,  if  there  is  any 
meaning  in  the  whole  ;  that  all  created  things  are  so  re- 
lated that  they  utter  the  same  voice  with  indefinite  va- 
riety,— all  are  truths  relating  to  man  and  to  God,  and 
linking  the  two  together ;  and  that  the  language  is 
worthy  of  its  Author,  infinitely  above  the  language  of 
men  in  every  quality,  in  extent  of  meaning,  in  precision, 
in  fulness,  in  perspicuity,  in  power,  in  adaptation  to 
every  state.  Truly,  ' '  The  heavens  declare  the  glory 
of  God,  and  the  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork. 
Day  unto  day  uttereth  speech,  and  night  unto  night 
showeth  knowledge." 


PARABLES. 


"All  these  things  spake  Jesus  tinto  the  multitude  hi  parables  ; 
and  without  a  parable  spake  he  not  unto  them  : 

"  That  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  the  prophet, 
saying,  I  will  open  my  mouth  in  parables  ;  I  will  utter  things 
which  have  been  kept  secret  from  the  foundation  of  the  world." 
— Matthew  xiii.  34,  35. 

'T'HE  parables  form  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  in- 


structive portions  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures.  Whether 
one  believes  in  their  Divine  character  or  not,  he  can 
hardly  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  lessons  they  teach 
and  the  beautiful  form  in  which  the  lessons  are  communi- 
cated. It  may  be  interesting  and  instructive  to  consider 
what  a  parable  is,  and  why  our  Lord  employed  parables 
so  often,  when  it  would  seem  that  a  more  explicit  form 
of  speech  would  have  been  better  suited  to  the  occasion. 
A  clear  understanding  of  the  causes  which  led  our  Lord 
to  use  this  method  of  communicating  Divine  truth  will 
show  that  in  this,  as  in  all  other  respects,  He  was  guided 
by  the  highest  wisdom. 

The  Lord  gives  the  reasons  why  He  speaks  in  parables. 
One  of  them  is  that  He  may  "utter  things  which  have 
been  kept  secret  from  the  foundation  of  the  world."  It 
is  also  evident  that  Divine  truth  is  given  in  the  form  of 
parables  to  adapt  it  to  a  peculiar  state  of  mind.  The 
Lord  makes  a  distinction  between  His  disciples  and  the 
multitude  in  this  respect.    "  Unto  you,"  He  said,  "it  is 


PARABLES. 


293 


given  to  know  the  mystery  of  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  but 
unto  them  that  are  without,  all  things  are  done  in  para- 
bles :  that  seeing  they  may  see,  and  not  perceive  ;  and 
hearing  they  may  hear,  and  not  understand."  The 
ground  and  force  of  this  reasoning  will  appear  more 
clearly  when  we  see  what  a  parable  is  and  what  relations 
it  sustains  to  ' '  things  which  have  been  kept  secret  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world,"  and  to  "the  mystery  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,"  which  it  is  given  to  the  Lord's 
disciples  to  understand. 

First,  let  us  consider  what  a  parable  is.  The  original 
word  means  to  throw  or  to  place  one  thing  beside  another, 
so  that  they  shall  be  parallel  to  each  other,  or  correspond 
or  answer  to  each  other.  A  parable  is  a  similitude  taken 
from  natural  things  to  instruct  us  in  the  knowledge  of 
spiritual  things.  The  accuracy  of  the  instruction  de- 
pends upon  the  truth  of  the  relation  between  nature  and 
spirit.  A  complete  parallelism  between  natural  and  spir- 
itual things,  in  which  the  natural  side  of  truth  runs  parallel 
with  the  spiritual,  answering  to  it  in  every  point,  is  a  para- 
ble. A  parable  is  not  a  fable,  which  is  a  fictitious  com- 
position employed  to  illustrate  a  natural  or  a  moral  truth  ; 
it  is  not  a  figure  of  speech.  There  is  nothing  arbitrary 
in  its  structure.  Spiritual  forms  and  relations  are  pre- 
sented in  material  forms  ;  and  this  is  done,  not  merely  in 
a  general  way,  the  natural  forms,  as  it  were,  touching 
some  parts  of  the  spiritual.  There  is  complete  parallel- 
ism ;  there  is  union  at  every  point.  A  parable  is  a  picture 
of  a  spiritual  truth.  It  is  a  picture,  done  in  material  colors 
and  material  forms,  which  perfectly  represents  the  spiritual 
counterpart. 

25* 


294      PJiOGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


To  get  an  adequate  idea  of  a  parable  we  must  pass  be- 
yond the  words  used  to  express  it,  to  the  forms  and 
actions  themselves.  The  material  actions  and  forms  con- 
stitute the  parable,  and  not  the  words  used  to  express 
them.  Thus  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  or  of  the 
Ten  Virgins,  is  a  drama,  in  which  great  spiritual  laws  are 
acted  before  us,  and  presented  in  a  form  and  manner 
adapted  to  our  senses. 

Parables  are  much  more  common  and  universal  in  their 
use  than  is  generally  supposed.  In  a  true  sense,  the 
whole  material  universe  is  a  parable.  It  is  the  effect  of 
which  spiritual  forces  are  the  cause,  and  these  forces  run 
parallel  to  it  in  every  particular.  The  material  world  is 
cast  into  the  mould  of  spiritual  forms.  Nature  does  not 
form  itself.  There  is  no  power  in  the  dead  and  passive 
mould — in  carbon,  oxygen,  or  in  any  of  the  primary  ele- 
ments of  matter — to  organize  themselves  into  a  plant. 
There  must  be  a  spiritual  force  acting  into  them  and  cast- 
ing them  into  its  own  forms.  Nature  is  a  parable  reveal- 
ing the  spiritual  and  Divine  forces  from  which  she  lives. 
Trees  and  animals  are  special  forms  in  the  universal 
parable  of  the  creation,  which  teach  us  special  truths. 
They  are  letters  in  the  great  book,  they  are  characters  in 
the  great  drama,  not  selected  and  trained,  but  created  for 
their  parts. 

The  human  foce  is  a  parable.  The  soul  created  it,  in 
the  first  instance,  in  its  own  image,  to  be  the  stage  on 
which  its  actors  can  represent  the  comedies  and  tragedies 
and  daily  history  of  its  life.  The  soul  stands  behind  the 
scenes  and  shifts  them  to  express  its  own  states.  Every 
feature  is  a  parable,  and  represents  its  part,  and  expresses 


PARABLES. 


295 


the  affection  or  thought  whose  form  it  is,  more  clearly 
than  words  can.  All  painting  and  sculpture  are  but 
copies  of  these  parables  which  the  face  and  the  whole 
body  are  expressing.  A  smile  is  a  parable  of  some 
pleasant,  gentle  affection  diffusing  itself  through  the  soul, 
as  the  morning  light  spreads  itself  over  the  mountains 
and  throws  its  shining  mantle  over  the  hills.  In  itself  it 
is  only  a  little  shifting  of  the  scenery  of  the  face,  and  yet 
how  much  it  expresses  !  The  mother  can  tell,  who  has 
seen  the  first  recognition  and  response  to  her  affection  in 
the  smile  of  her  first-born.  The  husband  or  the  wife  can 
tell,  who  has  watched  the  face  of  estranged  affection  in 
doubt  and  fear,  and  has  seen  the  cold  and  rigid  muscles 
relax  and  the  light  of  love  run  brightening  over  every 
feature. 

A  tear  is  a  parable,  and  in  its  crystal  sphere  lie  sorrows 
deeper  than  the  caves  of  the  ocean,  and  darker  and 
wilder  storms  than  ever  swept  in  fury  over  its  surface. 
What  histories  of  disappointed  hopes  !  What  tragedies 
of  suffering  and  slain  affections  !  What  wrestlings  with 
adverse  fortune  !  What  fears  of  coming  evil  !  The 
weariness  of  waiting,  the  despair  of  losing,  the  agony  of 
death  itself  are  imaged  in  a  tear.  It  has  also  a  lovelier 
office.  The  tear  of  penitence  holds  treasured  in  its  crystal 
deeps  a  life  of  waywardness  and  wandering,  of  evil  and 
sin,  turning  back  to  the  Father's  house.  It  is  hardness 
of  heart  melting  into  submission  to  Divine  truth  ;  it  is 
sorrow  brightening  into  joy  ;  it  is  the  first  drop  from  the 
unsealed  fountains  of  the  heart  whose  bitterness  has  been 
healed.  A  tear  !  How  small  it  is  !  Nothing  but  a  little 
water  with  a  savor  of  salt  in  it,  and  yet  it  means  more 


296      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  K.XOWLEDGE. 


than  ocean  and  cloud  and  storm.  It  is  the  parable  of  a 
fallen  humanity,  of  a  soul  estranged  from  the  Lord,  of 
a  nature  which  has  become  a  discord  in  the  Divine  har- 
monies, its  fears  and  its  sorrows,  its  conflicts  and  its  de- 
spair. And  when  the  Lord  would  picture  to  us  the  peace 
and  blessedness  of  heaven.  He  finds  no  more  fittmg  way 
of  expressing  it  than  in  the  beautiful  words,  "  And  God 
shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes.'" 

The  face  is  a  parable  in  which  are  written  all  thoughts 
and  all  affections  which  are  possible  to  the  human  soul. 
The  whole  bodj'  is  a  parable,  but  the  face  is  the  most 
clear  and  beautiful  and  the  richest  in  meaning.  It  speaks 
of  the  innocence  of  childhood,  of  the  purity  and  sweet- 
ness of  angelhood  ;  and  it  can  express  in  living  and 
perfect  forms  every  phase  of  action  and  every  state  of 
affection  of  a  soul  in  its  descent  from  heaven  to  hell,  and 
in  its  ascent  from  hell  to  heaven.  The  material  universe 
is  a  parable.  How  beautiful,  how  grand,  how  glorious, 
how  full  of  meaning  it  is  !  But  all  its  meaning,  all  its 
beauty,  all  its  grandeur  arc  gathered  into  the  human  face, 
and  are  there  written  in  finer  lines  and  lovelier,  and  with 
larger  and  more  delicate  shades  of  meaning.  Such  are 
parables. 

And  without  a  parai)lc  the  soul  does  not  and  cannot 
speak  to  another  soul  dwelling  in  a  material  body.  How 
can  I  express  my  thought  and  affection  ?  How  can  I 
convey  it  to  another  soul  ?  It  can  only  be  done  by 
means  of  the  material  body  and  the  material  world. 
Speech  is  not  possible  in  this  world  without  the  aid  of 
material  symbols.  Sound  is  a  parable  ;  light  is  a  para- 
ble, and  what  a  beautiful  and  glorious  one  it  is  !  The 


PARABLES. 


297 


written  word  is  only  a  conventional  sign  of  a  material  act 
or  form.  No,  the  only  access  we  have  to  one  another  in 
this  life  is  by  means  of  parables. 

The  Lord,  therefore,  only  made  special  use  of  a  uni- 
versal law  when  He  selected  and  arranged  certain  mate- 
rial things  and  natural  actions  to  embody  and  express 
Divine  truths  in  a  form  specially  adapted  to  human  con- 
ditions. He  took  some  of  the  most  beautiful  objects  of 
nature,  and  the  most  significant  relations  of  men,  and 
with  infinite  wisdom  arranged  them  in  such  forms  that 
they  might  be  to  the  common  speech  of  nature  and  of 
man  as  the  ruby  and  emerald  and  diamond  to  earth  and 
common  stones  ;  and  therefore,  by  way  of  distinction 
and  pre-eminence,  we  call  these  forms  of  speech  which 
lie  so  near  to  nature  parables,  though  they  are  not  ex- 
ceptional methods  of  communicating  spiritual  truth  in 
any  other  sense  than  that  they  are  divinely  excellent  and 
perfect. 

Having  thus  considered  the  nature  of  parables,  we  are 
better  prepared  to  understand  the  Divine  purpose  in 
using  them.  It  was  to  "utter  things  which  have  been 
kept  secret  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.'*  By  the 
world  here  we  are  not  to  understand  the  material  uni- 
verse merely.  It  is  the  cosjnos, — the  order  and  harmony 
and  resulting  beauty  and  use  of  the  Divine  truth  em- 
bodied in  spiritual  and  in  material  forms.  This  order 
and  beauty  have  their  foundation  in  the  Divine  truth. 
Wherever  you  see  powerful  forces  moving  in  harmony 
to  accomplish  beneficent  ends,  whether  in  the  spiritual 
or  in  the  material  plane  of  existence,  whether  in  church 
or  state,  in  domestic  or  industrial  life,  or  in  the  activities 


298     PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


of  nature,  creating  beauty  for  the  soul  or  food  and  cloth- 
ing for  the  body,  there  you  see  a  parable  teaching  the 
truths  of  the  Divine  wisdom,  and  revealing  the  secrets 
of  the  Divine  love  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  all  cre- 
ated intelligences  and  forms.  It  is  to  reveal  these  se- 
crets, to  admit  man  more  fully  and  interiorly  into  the 
purposes  of  His  love  and  the  methods  of  His  wisdom, 
that  the  Lord  opened  His  mouth  in  parables. 

This  is  a  purpose  the  Lord  has  always  at  heart,  an  end 
for  which  He  is  always  working.  It  is  to  let  man  into 
His  secrets,  to  take  him  to  His  infinite  heart,  to  give 
Himself  to  His  children,  to  share  His  blessings  with  them, 
to  teach  them,  to  lead  them,  to  live  for  them,  and,  if 
need  be,  to  die  for  them.  Tlie  Lord  is  love  itself,  and 
He  wants  companionship  ;  He  desires  to  tell  us  His  se- 
crets ;  He  longs  to  unbosom  Himself  to  us,  and  to  show 
us  the  hidden  and  most  lovely  forms  of  His  wisdom  ;  and 
He  adapts  His  speech  to  our  capacities  and  to  our  wants. 
He  opens  His  mouth  in  parables. 

To  His  disciples  it  is  given  to  know  the  mystery  of  the 
kingdom.  A  disciple  of  the  Lord  is  a  learner  of  His 
truth.  So  far  as  we  become  disciples  of  spiritual  truth, 
we  arc  introduced  into  the  secrets  and  understand  the 
mysteries  of  the  Lord's  kingdom.  As  we  learn  and  live 
we  pass  within  the  veil  of  nature  and  .see  the  truth,  and 
become  quickened  with  the  love,  of  which  the  natural 
form  is  the  parable  and  expression. 

But  to  the  multitude  who  stand  without,  the  Lord 
speaks  in  paral)les,  that,  seeing,  they  may  not  perceive. 
Why  should  He  do  this  when  it  is  His  purpose  and  the 
constant  effort  of  His  love  and  wisdom  to  reveal  Himself 


PARABLES.  299 

to  men  in  forms  as  interior  and  as  full  as  possible  ?  Be- 
cause He  desires  to  have  us  take  up  into  our  affections, 
and  appropriate  to  our  lives,  and  thus  make  a  part  of 
ourselves,  the  goodness  and  truth  He  gives  us.  He  does 
not  desire  to  make  machines  of  us,  mere  automatons, 
to  grind  out  effects  as  the  mill  grinds  corn.  He  does 
not  desire  to  lift  us  up  into  a  light  that  would  blind  us, 
and  to  carry  us  along  struggling  against  forces  which 
would  destroy  us.  He  desires  the  free  companionship 
of  love,  and  not  an  enforced,  unwilling  presence.  Be- 
sides, He  knows  how  much  we  can  bear,  and  how  high 
we  can  ascend  and  live  and  feel  at  home,  and  remain, 
and  He  never  seeks  to  raise  us  above  that  state  by  any 
force.  He  guards  our  freedom  as  the  essential  human 
principle  in  us,  whose  loss  would  be  the  defeat  of  His 
purpose  in  creating  us. 

The  Lord  knows  that  there  would  be  no  use,  but  great 
harm,  in  raising  us  into  a  state  in  which  we  could  not  be 
kept.  In  that  case  the  good  and  truth  would  be  pro- 
faned,— that  is,  they  would  become  mixed  with  evils  and 
falses.  By  the  good  received  man  would  be  drawn 
towards  heaven,  and  by  the  evil  he  would  become  dis- 
tracted,— drawn  asunder.  He  could  not  live  in  either 
heaven  or  hell.  He  would  be  like  a  fish  in  which  lungs 
had  been  formed  to  breathe  the  air,  but  whose  organism 
and  nature  in  other  respects  were  adapted  to  the  water. 
If  it  should  return  to  the  water,  it  would  be  suffocated  ; 
if  it  remained  on  the  land,  it  could  not  obtain  its  food, 
or  enter  into  any  of  its  delights. 

The  Lord  seeks  to  make  everything  He  creates  homo- 
geneous throughout  its  whole  nature,  and  to  giv'e  to  all 


300      PROGRESS  IiV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

its  faculties  unity  of  form  and  harmony  of  action.  To 
man  He  has  given  capacities  to  rise  through  all  grades 
of  being,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest.  All  His  provi- 
dences are  arranged  to  raise  man  to  the  highest,  and 
give  him  the  best.  But  in  doing  this  the  Lord  seeks  to 
elevate  man's  whole  nature,  not  to  rend  and  destroy  it. 
He  does  not,  therefore,  seek  to  convert  one  faculty  unless 
He  sees  that  He  can  convert  them  all.  He  does  not 
seek  to  raise  either  the  understanding  or  the  affections 
into  a  state  higher  than  that  which  the  whole  nature  can 
attain,  and  in  which  it  can  permanently  remain,  while 
man  acts  in  perfect  freedom.  For  this  reason  the  Lord 
adapts  His  truth  to  man's  state,  giving  it  in  the  form  of 
parables  to  the  multitude,  and  speaking  more  plainly  to 
those  who  can  receive  higher  truth,  but  always  with  the 
purpose  of  re\'ealing  Himself  to  man,  and  raising  him  up 
to  as  high  a  state  as  possible,  and  of  uttering  "things 
which  have  been  kept  secret  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world." 

When  truth  is  given  in  a  plain,  didactic,  and  positive 
manner,  we  must  accept  or  reject  it.  A  square  issue  is 
made,  and  there  is  no  way  of  evading  it.  Not  to  accept 
is  to  reject  ;  and  when  decidedly  rejected  we  are  not 
Hkely  to  give  it  further  thought.  The  Lord,  therefore, 
presents  His  Divine  truth,  as  far  as  possible,  in  ^miliar 
forms.  He  adapts  it  to  man's  low  and  weak  state.  He 
does  not  force  the  issue  upon  us,  but  seeks  to  prepare 
us  for  it,  and  to  lead  us  up  to  it  by  orderly  steps.  He 
veils  it,  and  holds  it  before  us,  and  embodies  it  in  forms 
that  are  attractive  to  us,  that  appeal  to  something  in  our 
nature.    He  bridges  the  gulf  between  us  and  Himself 


PARABLES. 


301 


with  natural  truths,  and  makes  it  pleasant  with  human 
fancies,  that  He  may  win  us  to  act  in  freedom.  He 
makes  the  steps  short  and  not  too  difficult,  that  we 
may  not  be  discouraged  and  sink  down  in  despair. 
Truth  is  the  way  :  He  has  built  it  with  histories  and 
stirring  natural  events,  which  attract  even  the  sensuous 
nature  of  childhood  ;  He  has  beautified  it  with  symbol 
and  parable,  and  made  it  charming  with  song,  that  every 
principle  in  man's  nature,  even  the  sensuous,  may  be 
appealed  to. 

The  very  defects  which  the  dry  and  severely  rational 
and  logical  mind  thinks  it  detects  in  the  Sacred  Scrip- 
tures, their  simplicity,  their  pure  naturalness  in  some 
parts  and  wild  fancy  in  others,  are  among  the  most 
beautiful  exhibitions  of  the  Divine  tenderness  and  loving 
consideration  for  man  in  his  lowest  states.  The  Lord 
brings  Divine  and  heavenly  truth  down  into  the  lowest 
forms,  and  conceals  its  blinding  splendors  by  the  shadows 
of  earth,  tinting  them  with  heavenly  beauty,  to  gain  rec- 
ognition and  awaken  curiosity  and  to  secure  a  lodgment 
for  them  in  the  memory,  that  He  may,  when  time  and 
occasion  and  changing  state  permit,  give  more  light  and 
reveal  Himself  and  the  grand  possibilities  of  the  soul  in 
clearer  and  higher  forms. 

Truth  in  the  form  of  a  parable  is  peculiarly  adapted 
to  all  the  wants  and  conditions  of  the  natural  mind,  and 
to  the  Lord's  purpose  of  regenerating  it.  It  leaves  the 
mind  in  freedom.  We  see  the  truth,  and  we  do  not  see 
it.  In  a  purely  natural  state  represented  by  the  "multi- 
tude" we  may  see  nothing  but  the  letter,  the  casket 
which  contains  the  jewels.    But  that  is  so  beautiful  that 

26 


302      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

we  preserve  it  for  itself.  The  child  and  the  simple- 
minded  can  admire  a  parable  as  a  pretty  picture  alone. 
They  do  not  know  that  there  are  the  most  precious 
jewels  within.  They  do  not  care  to  know.  They  can- 
not see  them,  and  if  the  casket  were  opened  and  the 
diamonds  and  rubies  were  put  into  their  hands,  they 
would  throw  them  away  ;  they  would  be  nothing  but 
coarse  pebbles  to  them,  because  their  intrinsic  beauty  and 
worth  can  be  seen  only  in  heavenly  light  and  by  the  eye 
opened  to  spiritual  vision.  But  they  are  there,  and  when 
the  Lord  can  cure  our  natural  blindness,  we  can  discover 
their  heavenly  value. 

We  can  see  something  in  a  parable,  all  that  we  have 
eyes  to  see.  We  think  we  see  all  the  meaning  it  has. 
Therefore  we  reject  nothing.  A  perverted  rationality 
cannot  argue  against  a  parable.  We  might  as  well 
argue  against  the  glories  of  an  evening  cloud  or  the 
loveliness  of  a  flower-garden.  Our  self-derived  intelli- 
gence is  not  aroused.  A  parable  does  not  ordinarily 
offend  us.  We  can  turn  it  this  way  and  that,  place  it  in 
all  lights  and  study  it  as  a  picture.  It  is  a  picture,  and 
even  the  multitude  can  see  enough  of  meaning  and 
beauty  to  make  it  worth  possession.  They  see  the  out- 
ward form,  even  if  they  do  not  perceive  the  inward 
meaning.  They  hear  the  natural  sound,  though  they  do 
not  catch  the  undertone  of  heavenly  harmony.  But  by 
these  natural  means  they  may  be  led  into  a  spiritual  state 
in  which  they  can  see  the  other  side  of  the  parable, 
which  the  natural  represents. 

And  this  is  what  the  Lord  designs  to  effect  by  these 
natural  means.    He  does  not  carry  us  ;  He  leads  us. 


PARABLES. 


He  gives  us  power  and  then  encourages  us  to  use  it.  He 
does  not  force  the  light  upon  us,  but  helps  us  to  grow  up 
to  it,  sharpens  our  sight  to  see  it. 

A  parable  is  Divine  truth  in  natural  forms.  The  nat- 
ural image  is  of  such  a  nature  and  so  connected  with 
spiritual  and  Divine  truth  that  there  is  no  limit  to  its 
meaning.  While  it  contracts  to  the  capacity  of  the 
smallest  minds,  it  enlarges  to  the  dimensions  of  the 
greatest  finite  intelligence.  It  does  this  in  whatever  way 
we  view  it,  whether  as  a  picture  of  one  state  or  of  many  ; 
whether  we  regard  it  as  a  whole  or  in  its  particulars. 
Every  fact  has  its  significance  and  an  orderly  relation  to 
all  the  other  parts.  You  cannot  take  anything  away  from 
one  of  our  Lord's  parables  without  marring  its  propor- 
tions or  dimming  its  meaning. 

As  parables  are  the  natural  expression  of  "things 
which  have  been  kept  secret  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world,"  their  beauty,  fitness,  and  precision  of  meaning 
increase  as  we  pass  within,  and  rise  to  the  spirit  to  which 
they  correspond.  They  are  like  the  bud  which  encloses 
within  it  a  beautiful  blossom,  and  within  that  delicious 
fruit.  Infinite  things  lie  enfolded  within  them,  which  we 
shall  continue  to  discover  as  our  eyes  are  opened.  And 
the  truth  we  see  will  be  the  form  of  some  good  which  we 
shall  enjoy  as  our  affections  become  purified  and  enlarged. 
Thus  the  letter  of  the  parable  will  undergo  a  constant 
transformation,  more  heavenly  truths  blossoming  out  of 
it,  and  more  precious  fruits  ripening  in  it.  Spiritual 
mysteries  will  be  revealed,  and  the  secret  purposes  of  the 
Divine  love  and  the  secret  methods  of  the  Divine  wisdom 
will  be  brought  to  light,  and  by  means  of  them  man  will 


304     PROGRESS  I.V  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

be  brought  nearer  to  the  Lord.  Every  parable  is  a  ladder 
like  that  which  Jacob  saw.  Its  foot  rests  upon  the  earth, 
its  top  reaches  unto  heaven,  and  on  its  bright  rounds  the 
angels  of  Divine  truth  ascend  and  descend  to  man,  to 
instruct  and  bless  him.  The  whole  Bible  is  such  a  par- 
able, every  particular  of  which  is  given  to  embody  and 
shadow  forth  some  quality  of  the  Di\  ine  love  and  some 
form  of  the  Divine  wisdom.  Its  histories,  though  records 
of  deeds  actually  done  by  men,  are  parables  shadowing 
forth  the  infinite  mysteries  of  the  Divine  nature.  Its 
plain  precepts,  its  statutes  and  commandments,  its  sub- 
lime and  lovely  songs,  its  wild  and  glorious  prophetic 
visions,  and  even  its  dry  genealogies,  are  parables,  the 
vesture  of  many  colors  clothing  the  splendors  of  Divine 
truth,  adapting  it  to  human  conditions,  and  revealing  to 
man  in  e\  ery  state  all  the  truth  he  can  receive  and  appro- 
priate. It  is  a  law  of  the  Divine  order,  founded  in  the 
nature  of  man  and  the  Lord,  that  without  a  parable  He 
does  not  and  cannot  speak  unto  us. 


THE  END  OF  THE  WORLD. 


"  One  generation  passeth  away,  a7id  another  generation 
Cometh :  but  the  earth  abidcth  for  ever." — Ecclesiastes  i.  4. 

'X'HE  belief  that  the  material  universe  is  finally  to  be 


destroyed  has  been  and  still  is  almost  universal  in 
the  Christian  Church.  Some  have  maintained  that  matter 
will  be  entirely  annihilated  ;  others,  that  it  will  only  be 
burnt  up  and  reduced  to  its  simple  elements,  and  that  out 
of  these  elements  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth  will  be 
formed,  and  that  the  new  earth  will  be  the  eternal  dwell- 
ing-place of  the  righteous.  Their  bodies  are  to  be  raised 
up  from  the  earth,  and  their  souls  brought  back  and  re- 
instated in  them.  The  Lord  is  to  come  down  from 
heaven  and  dwell  with  them  and  be  their  King.  All 
traces  of  sin  and  imperfection  will  be  destroyed  in  the 
general  conflagration,  and  the  whole  earth  will  become 
an  Eden,  the  garden  of  the  Lord,  and  all  those  glowing 
prophecies  concerning  the  peace  and  happiness  of  the 
righteous  will  be  fulfilled. 

About  the  time  when  this  great  change  is  to  take  place 
there  has  been  much  difference  of  opinion.  There  can 
be  no  reasonable  doubt  but  the  apostles  expected  it  in 
their  day,  and  Christians  have  been  looking  for  it  and 
predicting  it  every  century  since.  Many  of  us  can  re- 
member the  excitement  caused  by  Millerism.  Many 
persons  were  so  sure  that  they  had  discovered  the  year 
u  26*  305 


3o6      FHOGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


and  the  day  when  the  end  was  to  come  that  they  had 
their  ascension  robes  made,  and,  clad  in  them,  they  as- 
sembled on  the  appointed  da}',  expecting  that  the  Lord 
would  come  in  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  that  they  would 
be  caught  up  with  Him  in  the  air  while  the  earth  and  the 
heavens  were  being  consumed. 

Learned  commentators  and  diligent  students  of  proph- 
ecy postponed  the  end  to  1866.  It  is  quite  safe  to  say 
now,  however,  that  they  were  mistaken  in  the  time,  if 
not  in  the  event  itself 

There  is  another  important  point  upon  which  there  is 
an  equally  serious  conflict  of  opinion.  Some  believe  that 
the  millennium — that  is,  a  period  of  a  thousand  years  in 
which  the  Lord  is  to  reign  personally  upon  the  earth,  and 
righteousness  and  peace  are  to  prevail  universally — will 
take  place  before  the  world  is  burnt  up.  Others  believe 
that  the  world  is  to  be  consumed  first  and  that  the  mil- 
lennium will  take  place  afterwards,  and  among  those  who 
entertain  this  opinion  are  many  of  the  most  learned 
divines  in  all  branches  of  the  church.  There  is  a  general 
assent  to  the  doctrine  that  the  earth,  if  not  the  material 
universe,  is  to  be  burnt  up,  and  either  annihilated  or 
made  over  into  a  new  one. 

But  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  teach  directly  the 
reverse  of  this.  The)-  declare  that  this  earth  and  all  the 
earths  in  the  material  universe  were  created  to  be  the 
birthj^lace  of  intelligent  spiritual  beings,  who  commence 
their  existence  in  a  material  body,  and  after  a  time  dis- 
card it  and  pass  on  into  the  spiritual  world,  where  they 
are  to  dwell  forever.  The  earths  are  the  seminaries  of 
the  heavens.    The  material  uni\'erse  was  created  from  the 


THE  END  OF  THE  WORLD. 


spiritual  universe,  and  bears  the  same  relation  to  it  that  the 
body  does  to  the  soul,  that  the  husk  does  to  the  corn,  or 
the  shell  to  the  fruit.  Every  human  being  begins  his 
existence  upon  some  material  earth,  and  sooner  or  later 
passes  on  into  the  spiritual  world.  Thus  the  work  of 
creation  is  continually  going  on.  New  souls  are  con- 
tinually being  created  and  passing  on  to  their  eternal 
home.  Generation  after  generation  commences  exist- 
ence, passes  across  the  stage  of  this  life  and  on  to  eter- 
nity, and,  as  we  believe,  will  continue  to  do  so  forever. 
I  invite  your  attention  to  the  grounds  for  this  belief 

The  doctrine  is  entirely  in  accordance  with  Scripture 
when  correctly  understood.  There  are  some  passages 
both  in  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  which  describe 
remarkable  changes  as  taking  place  in  the  earth  and  the 
heavens.  The  sun  is  said  to  be  darkened,  the  moon 
changed  into  blood,  the  stars  to  fall  from  the  heavens, 
the  foundations  of  the  earth  to  be  shaken,  the  heavens 
to  be  rolled  together  as  a  scroll,  when,  in  the  words  of 
Peter,  ' '  the  heavens  shall  pass  away  with  a  great  noise, 
and  the  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat ;  the  earth 
also,  and  the  works  that  are  therein,  shall  be  burned  up." 
"The  earth  is  utterly  broken  down,"  cries  Isaiah,  "the 
earth  is  clean  dissolved,  the  earth  is  moved  exceedingly. 
The  earth  shall  reel  to  and  fro  like  a  drunkard,  and- shall 
be  removed  like  a  cottage  ;  and  the  transgression  thereof 
shall  be  heavy  upon  it." 

Now,  it  is  simply  impossible  that  all  these  particulars 
can  be  literally  true.  It  is  impossible  that  the  stars 
should  fall  to  the  earth.  The  earth  is  a  mere  grain  of 
sand  compared  with  the  stars.    We  can  see  that  the  sun 


3o8      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

might  be  darkened,  but  how  impossible  that  the  moon 
should  be  turned  into  blood  ;  or,  if  possible,  what  use 
could  there  be  in  it?  In  one  place  it  is  said  that  the 
earth  shall  be  burned  up,  in  another  that  it  shall  be  re- 
moved like  a  cottage  ;  and  again  that  "  every  mountain 
and  island  shall  be  moved  out  of  their  places."  In  one 
place  it  is  said  the  nations  are  to  be  gathered  together  in 
the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat.  Sometimes  this  great  con- 
summation is  represented  as  having  taken  place,  and 
again  as  about  to  take  place  in  some  future  time.  The 
disciples  asked  the  Lord,  saying,  ' '  Tell  us,  when  shall 
these  things  be  ?  and  what  shall  be  the  sign  of  thy  coming, 
and  of  the  end  of  the  world  ?"  And  the  Lord  answered, 
"This  generation  shall  not  pass,  till  all  these  things  be 
fulfilled." 

It  is  impossible  to  form  any  definite  conclusion  from 
attempts  to  interpret  the  Scripture  literally.  No  human 
ingenuity,  no  grasp  of  intellectual  power,  can  reconcile 
all  this  imagery  and  show  its  bearing  upon  one  natural 
event.  But,  furthermore,  the  word  translated  "world" 
in  the  phrase  "the  end  of  the  world,"  does  not  mean 
world  in  the  sense  of  a  material  earth,  and  never  did. 
A  recent  commentator  says,  "  It  is  very  remarkable  that 
the  word  which  means  world  in  Greek  is  never  used 
where  what  is  supposed  to  be  the  end  of  the  world  is  de- 
scribed." The  Greek  word  aidn  means  an  age  or  dis- 
pensation, or  period  of  the  church.  In  this  sense  we 
speak  of  past  ages.  We  apply  it  to  a  special  develop- 
ment of  life  and  literature,  as  when  we  .say  the  Elizabethan 
Age.  The  apostles,  without  any  doubt,  used  the  word 
aidn  in  this  sense.    Our  Lord  had  just  foretold  the  de- 


THE  END  OF  THE  WORLD. 


struction  of  Jerusalem.  He  had  just  told  the  disciples 
that  there  should  not  be  left  one  stone  upon  another  of 
the  temple  that  should  not  be  thrown  down  ;  and  He  had 
said,  "Ye  shall  not  see  me  henceforth,  till  ye  shall  say. 
Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 
Then  they  asked  Him,  "When  shall  these  things  be? 
and  what  shall  be  the  sign  of  thy  coming,  and  of  the  end 
of  the  age, — of  the  Jewish  Church  or  Dispensation  ?" 
They  supposed  He  was  going  to  establish  a  new  age  or 
kingdom  in  the  place  of  the  Jewish  Church.  The 
question  is,  therefore,  natural  and  pertinent.  But  if 
they  meant  the  earth  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  for 
such  a  question.  There  was  nothing  in  the  preceding 
conversation  to  lead  to  such  a  question. 

If  our  Lord's  answer  also  is  carefully  considered  it  will 
be  found  to  have  no  special  application  to  such  a  ques- 
tion, and  commentators  have  had  the  greatest  difificulty 
in  reconciling  many  things  in  it  with  the  idea  that  it  re- 
fers to  the  end  of  the  material  world.  Many  things  apply 
with  great  pertinence  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  but 
others  do  not.  The  apostles,  without  doubt,  found  their 
questions  answered  to  their  satisfaction.  They  believed 
that  the  end  would  come  in  their  day,  and  we  find  them 
frequently  referring  to  it  in  their  epistles.  "  The  time  is 
short."  "The  day  of  the  Lord  is  at  hand."  They  fre- 
quently speak  of  being  "in  the  last  days,"  "in  the  last 
times,"  "in  the  ends  of  the  age."  That  they  did  not 
fully  understand  what  the  change  would  be  in  all  its 
breadth  and  detail  is  evident  from  their  own  language. 
Before  our  Lord's  death  and  resurrection  they  supposed 
the  Lord  came  to  establish  a  political  kingdom  and  re- 


3IO     PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

store  Israel  to  their  former  power  and  splendor.  Their 
views  became  more  elevated  after  our  Lord's  ascension  ; 
they  knew  that  His  kingdom  was  a  spiritual  kingdom, 
but  still  they  did  not  fully  comprehend  its  nature,  and 
probably  expected  that  its  establishment  would  be  at- 
tended with  many  signs  and  portents,  with  many  civil 
and  physical  commotions.  There  are  evidences,  how- 
ever, that  they  did  not  understand  the  terms  literally 
which  speak  of  commotions  and  destruction.  At  the  day 
of  Pentecost,  when  the  apostles  were  filled  with  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  began  to  speak  with  other  tongues  as  the 
Spirit  gave  them  utterance,  some,  mocking,  said,  "  These 
men  are  full  of  new  wine."  But  Peter  said,  "This  is 
that  which  was  spoken  by  the  prophet  Joel,  And  it  shall 
come  to  pass  in  the  last  days,  saith  God,  I  will  pour  out 
of  my  spirit  upon  all  flesh  ;  and  your  sons  and  your 
daughters  shall  prophesy,  and  your  young  men  shall  see 
visions,  and  your  old  men  shall  dream  dreams  :  and  on 
my  servants  and  on  my  handmaidens  I  will  pour  out  in 
those  days  of  my  Spirit  ;  and  they  shall  prophesy  :  and 
I  will  show  wonders  in  heaven  above,  and  signs  in  the 
earth  beneath  ;  blood,  and  fire,  and  vapour  of  smoke  : 
the  sun  shall  be  turned  into  darkness,  and  the  moon  into 
blood,  before  that  great  and  notable  day  of  the  Lord 
come."  (Acts  ii.  16-20.)  Thus  Peter  expressly  de- 
clares that  what  they  saw  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  was 
the  fulfilment  of  this  prophecy,  and  that  it  was  "in  the 
last  days."  Ought  not  this  to  be  a  key  to  the  interpre- 
tation of  all  such  language  when  used  by  the  apostles, 
especially  by  Peter  ? 

In  the  interpretation  of  Scripture,  if  one  part  of  a  state- 


THE  END  OF  THE  WORLD. 


3" 


ment  is  taken  literally  the  whole  ought  to  be.  If  it  is 
said  that  the  moon  shall  be  turned  into  blood,  we  must 
accept  that  as  a  literal  fact  if  we  do  the  other  part  of  the 
statement.  We  ought  to  believe  that  the  stars  will  fall 
upon  the  earth,  even  as  a  fig-tree  casteth  her  untimely 
figs  when  she  is  shaken  of  a  mighty  wind,  if  we  believe 
the  other  part  of  the  statement,  that  the  heaven  will  de- 
part as  a  scroll  when  it  is  rolled  together,  and  that  every 
mountain  and  island  will  be  moved  out  of  their  places. 
(Rev.  vi.  12-14.) 

According  to  the  same  principle,  if  we  accept  a  state- 
ment of  Scripture  as  referring  to  a  particular  event  in  one 
part  of  the  Bible,  it  is  reasonable  to  accept  every  similar 
statement  in  every  part  of  the  Bible  in  the  same  sense. 
If  this  is  done  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  prove  from  the  Bible  that  the  material  universe  is 
ever  to  be  destroyed  by  fire.  Some  fact  will  always  be 
found  which  cannot  be  brought  to  harmonize  with  the 
others.  The  doctrine  or  theory  does  not  explain  all  the 
facts,  and,  consequently,  either  the  facts  or  the  doctrine 
cannot  be  true. 

Now  let  us  apply  the  doctrine  of  the  New  Church  and 
her  method  of  interpreting  the  Scriptures  to  those  pas- 
sages which  are  supposed  to  refer  to  the  end  of  the  world. 
The  doctrine  is  this  : 

By  the  end  of  the  world  is  meant  the  end  or  consum- 
mation of  an  age,  or  a  complete  cycle  in  the  spiritual 
movements  of  humanity.  The  Jewish  Church  was  one 
age,  which  came  to  an  end  when  our  Lord  was  upon  the 
earth.  The  Christian  Church  was  another  age  or  dis- 
tinct movement  in  the  spiritual  progress  of  humanity. 


312      PROGRESS  /A"  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


The  Jewish  Church  was  purely  natural,  and  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  spiritual  church.  The  Jews  had  no  hopes 
or  aspirations  beyond  this  world.  They  believed  that 
the  Messiah  was  to  be  a  temporal  ruler,  like  David  and 
Solomon,  who  was  to  exalt  them  to  the  pinnacle  of 
earthly  power.  Jerusalem  was  not  a  heavenly  but  an 
earthly  city,  the  capital  of  their  own  kingdom,  which 
they  expected  would  become  the  capital  of  the  whole 
earth.  This  life  and  this  world  bounded  all  their  hopes 
and  fears.  There  may  have  been  some  men  who  caught 
glimpses  of  something  beyond,  but  this  pure  naturalism 
was  the  essential  element  of  the  Jewish  Dispensation. 

The  Christian  Dispensation  took  a  distinct  step  in  ad- 
vance. It  was  a  spiritual  church.  God  was  a  spiritual 
being,  and  not  a  merely  temporal  king.  Jerusalem  was 
a  church  or  a  heavenly  city.  Righteousness  did  not 
consist  in  a  scrupulous  adherence  to  the  ceremonial  law, 
but  in  a  life  according  to  the  commandments.  The  law 
reached  the  thoughts  and  intentions.  But  these  truths 
the  church  received  upon  authority.  The  church  has 
never  had  any  rational  knowledge  of  spiritual  truth.  All 
her  doctrines  are  taught  dogmatically,  and  are  to  be  re- 
ceived by  faith,  as  matters  of  belief,  upon  testimony. 
The  essential  characteristic  of  the  first  Christian  age  has 
been  belief  in  spiritual  truth  and  obedience  to  it  ;  but 
truth  received  upon  authority  and  not  rationally  under- 
stood. 

A  church  or  age  comes  to  an  end  when  the  essential 
principle  which  distinguishes  it  from  all  others  ceases  to 
be  a  living  principle.  Thus  the  Jewish  world  or  age 
came  to  an  end  when  they  made  tlie  Word  of  God  of 


THE  END  OF  THE  WORLD.  313 

none  effect  by  their  tradition,  and  when  their  national 
hfe  and  civil  polity  and  ceremonial  worship  at  Jerusalem 
ceased.  The  first  Christian  age  came  to  an  end  when  its 
love  for  the  truth  had  grown  cold,  and  its  belief  in  the 
truth  which  constituted  the  church  had  been  destroyed. 
This,  we  believe,  took  place  about  a  century  ago.  It 
would  not  be  difficult  to  show  by  the  testimony  of  the 
church  herself  that  all  real  belief  in  her  doctrines  had  per- 
ished. You  can  hardly  find  two  men  now  who  think 
alike  upon  any  of  the  essential  doctrines  of  the  church. 
Even  if  they  use  the  same  words,  they  do  not  attach  the 
same  idea  to  them  ;  and  multitudes  repeat  the  creed  with- 
out attaching  any  idea  to  it.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to 
prove  this  truth,  but  simply  to  state  it  for  illustrating  what 
we  mean  in  the  New  Church  by  the  end  of  the  world,  or 
the  consummation  of  the  age.  You  will  perceive  that  it  is 
not  the  end  of  an  organization,  of  dogmas  and  outward 
forms,  but  of  inward  life.  A  tree  may  retain  its  form  for 
many  years  after  it  is  dead.  Wood  may  preserve  its  ex- 
istence for  many  centuries  and  be  applied  to  many  useful 
forms  after  its  life  has  come  to  an  end.  So  a  church  may 
retain  its  outward  organization  and  teach  its  dogmas  for 
many  years  after  it  is  dead.  Indeed,  it  is  the  distinguish- 
ing characteristic  of  a  dead  church  that  it  is  scrupulous  in 
paying  tithes  of  the  mint,  anise,  and  cummin  of  creeds 
and  ceremonies,  while  it  neglects  the  weightier  matters 
of  the  law,  judgment,  mercy,  and  faith. 

Having  stated  what  we  understand  by  the  end  of  the 
world  or  age,  let  us  look  at  the  terms  in  which  that 
event  is  described  in  the  Bible.    The  doctrines  of  the 
New  Church  teach  us  that  the  whole  Bible  is  written 
o  27 


314     PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


according  to  the  correspondence  of  natural  with  spiritual 
things.  The  sun  represents  the  Lord  :  its  heat  repre- 
sents His  love  received  and  reciprocated  by  men.  The 
moon  represents  the  cool  light  of  faith.  The  stars  are 
bits  of  knowledge  of  heavenly  things  held  in  memory. 
The  earth  represents  the  church  ;  all  things  on  the  earth 
represent  the  truths  or  principles  which  constitute  the 
church,  and  everything  that  occurs  on  the  earth  repre- 
sents some  form  or  activity  of  those  truths  and  principles. 
Now  let  us  apply  this  method  of  interpretation  to  some 
of  the  passages  in  the  Word  which  relate  to  this  sub- 
ject. 

The  darkening  of  the  sun  means  the  loss  from  the 
church  of  that  love  for  the  Lord  and  of  that  sense  of  the 
Lord's  love  which  are  its  very  life. 

The  withdrawal  of  the  moon's  light  means  the  gradual 
loss  of  all  belief  or  faith  in  the  truths  of  the  church. 
Its  being  changed  into  'olood  denotes  the  destruction 
of  all  living  quality  in  the  faith  of  the  church.  It  rep- 
resents the  loss  of  all  charity  or  brotherly  love.  The 
falling  of  the  stars  from  heaven  denotes  the  entire  disper- 
sion and  loss  of  all  the  knowledges  of  spiritual  truth,  by 
giving  them  a  merely  natural  meaning.  The  spiritual 
mind  is  heaven  compared  with  the  natural  mind.  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  within  us.  When  those  truths 
which  relate  to  the  spiritual  man  are  brought  down  and 
sensualized,  when  the  church  begins  to  lose  the  spirit 
and  to  think  lightly  of  the  life,  and  makes  much  of  mere 
dogmas  and  ceremonies,  which  is  the  sign  of  a  dying  or 
dead  church,  then  the  stars  fall  from  heaven  upon  the 
earth,  even  as  a  fig-tree,  which  denotes  a  development  of 


THE  END  OF  THE  WORLD. 


merely  natural  good,  casteth  her  untimely  figs  when  she 
is  shaken  of  a  mighty  wind. 

When  the  light  of  Divine  truth  is  darkened  in  the 
mind  ;  when  the  warmth  of  spiritual  love  grows  cold,  and 
all  belief  in  spiritual  truth  is  destroyed,  and  all  true 
knowledge  of  its  facts  and  doctrines  is  lost,  then  the 
heavens  depart  as  a  scroll  when  it  is  rolled  together  ;  the 
spiritual  mind  becomes  closed  to  all  spiritual  truth,  and 
the  end  of  the  world  draws  near. 

If  we  look  at  any  particular  church  and  note  the 
changes  that  have  taken  place  in  her  when  she  ap- 
proached her  end,  we  shall  find  that  the  changes  which 
are  said  to  take  place  in  the  earth  represent  them  in 
every  particular.  Our  Lord  says  that  many  will  come  in 
His  name,  claiming  to  be  the  Christ,  and  shall  deceive 
many.  This  prediction  means  that  many  will  claim  to 
have  the  only  message  of  Divine  truth.  How  diverse 
the  doctrines  are  we  know,  and  how  sharp  the  contro- 
versies and  how  bitter  the  persecutions  which  have  arisen 
among  their  adherents.  These  are  the  wars  and  rumors 
of  wars  foretold  by  our  Lord.  The  conflict  of  evil  with 
evil  and  of  falsity  with  falsity  is  described  as  nation  rising 
against  nation  and  kingdom  against  kingdom.  Famines 
are  caused  by  the  lack  of  the  bread  of  life,  which  is  love 
to  the  Lord  and  the  neighbor.  The  pestilences  foretold 
are  the  moral  and  spiritual  evils  which  corrupt  the  hearts 
and  minds  of  men,  and  cause  spiritual  disease  and  death. 
The  earthquakes  are  the  commotions  in  the  church,  which 
shake  it  to  its  foundations  and  break  it  up  into  sects,  as 
the  earth's  crust  is  shaken  and  broken  into  fragments  by 
natural  earthquakes. 


31 6      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

In  this  manner  we  might  take  every  passage  in  the 
whole  Bible  which  refers  to  the  end  of  the  world,  and 
show  the  special  meaning  of  every  particular,  and  its  en- 
tire harmony  with  this  doctrine  and  its  bearing  upon  it. 
All  these  terms  are  not  given  a  special  meaning  to  adapt 
them  to  this  particular  doctrine.  But  they  have  this 
meaning  everywhere,  in  the  whole  Word.  The  sun, 
moon,  stars,  and  earth  always  have  essentially  the  same 
meaning.  The  earth  always  means  the  church  or  those 
principles  which  constitute  it.  All  the  wars,  famines,  and 
pestilences  mentioned  in  the  Scriptures  signify  and  repre- 
sent spiritual  conflicts,  in  which  evils  and  falsities  contend 
among  themselves  or  stand  opposed  to  goodness  and 
truth.  And  we  are  not  compelled  to  remain  in  a  general 
application  alone.  We  can  descend  to  the  minutest  par- 
ticulars, even  to  the  kind  of  weapons  used  in  these  con- 
flicts, the  people  who  carry  on  the  wars,  and  the  causes 
of  defeat  or  victory.  The  farther  this  correspondence  is 
carried,  the  clearer  it  becomes  and  the  more  universal  its 
application  becomes,  so  that  the  argument  from  the  Word 
comes  out  in  the  clearest  and  fullest  manner,  satisfying 
every  condition  of  humanity  and  every  demand  of  the 
reason  and  every  statement  of  Scripture.  I  have  not 
attempted  to  do  more  than  to  give  an  outline  of  the  argu- 
ment and  show  the  manner  in  which  we  read  the  sacred 
symbols  to  learn  what  the  Word  really  teaches  concern- 
ing the  last  days.  I  shall  invite  your  attention  now  to 
some  of  the  rational  considerations  which  confirm  the 
belief  that  the  end  of  the  world  is  a  spiritual  and  not  a 
natural  event. 

According  to  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church,  the 


THE  END  OF  THE  WORLD.  317 

material  universe  was  created  to  be  the  birthplace  of  end- 
less generations  of  intelligent  beings,  who  were  to  pass 
on  into  the  spiritual  world  and  make  room  for  those  who 
should  come  after  them.  It  is  the  essential  nature  of  love 
to  create,  to  communicate  itself  as  fully  as  possible  to 
others.  As  the  Lord's  love  is  infinite,  this  essential  ele- 
ment of  His  being  can  never  be  exhausted.  He  must 
have  the  same  reasons  to-day  for  creating  intelligent 
beings  that  He  had  for  creating  the  first  man  ;  and  there 
must  be  the  same  reasons  millions  of  years  hence  for 
creating  new  souls  to  become  the  recipients  of  the  Divine 
love  and  blessedness  that  there  are  now.  It  must,  there- 
fore, be  contrary  to  the  essential  nature  of  the  Lord  that 
He  should  ever  cease  to  create. 

It  has  been  proved  by  modern  astronomers  that  our 
sun  with  its  attendant  planets  and  the  myriad  visible  stars 
are  moving  in  vast  orbits  around  some  common  centre. 
This  orbit  of  our  solar  system  is  so  vast  that  it  could 
complete  only  a  small  part  of  a  revolution  in  six  thousand 
years.  How  absurd  to  suppose  that  a  Being  of  infinite 
wisdom  would  create  a  universe  and  set  its  worlds  re- 
volving in  their  orbits,  and  then  destroy  them  before 
they  had  completed  one  revolution  !  A  little  child  is  not 
guilty  of  so  great  a  folly  who  builds  a  house  of  cards  and 
throws  it  down  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  it  fall. 

But  again,  the  ratio  between  the  smallest  grain  of  sand 
and  our  earth  is  greater  than  the  ratio  between  our  earth 
and  the  whole  of  the  material  universe  ;  can  any  supposi- 
tion be  more  absurd  than  that  the  Lord  would  destroy 
the  whole  material  universe  because  some  beings  who 
dwell  upon  this  grain  of  sand  have  broken  His  laws  ? 

27* 


3i8      PROGRESS  I.V  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

The  act  of  a  man  who  burned  his  barn  to  kill  a  rat  was 
wise  compared  with  such  a  destruction  of  the  universe. 
You  cannot  find  anything  in  the  childish  ignorance  or 
fitful  spite  of  men  so  absurd  as  this.  How  irrational, 
then,  to  call  it  by  no  worse  a  name,  to  attribute  such 
folly  to  infinite  love  and  wisdom  !  Suppose  the  Lord  has 
been  disappointed  and  His  purpose  in  some  respects  de- 
feated by  sin,  is  that  any  reason  why  He  should  complete 
the  defeat  of  His  ends  by  a  universal  destruction  ?  But 
it  cannot  be  that  He  has  been  defeated  or  disappointed. 
Omniscience  saw  the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  infinite 
wisdom  provided  the  best  means.  The  Lord  can  make 
no  mistakes.  Sin  has  only  served  to  bring  out  the  mani- 
festations of  His  love  in  larger  measures  and  in  a  greater 
variety  of  forms.  There  is  no  more  cause  for  the  de- 
struction of  the  universe  than  there  was  to  pre\  ent  its 
creation  in  the  first  instance.  There  is  the  same  reason 
for  its  continuance,  and  must  forever  be,  that  there  was 
for  its  creation.  The  Divine  nature  as  it  is  in  itself,  the 
end  for  which  the  universe  was  created,  the  whole  order 
and  method  of  the  creation  and  human  reason,  all  teach 
us  in  unequivocal  terms  that  the  material  universe  will 
never  be  destroyed  until  infinite  love  grows  cold  and  in- 
finite wisdom  fails  to  pro\  ide  the  ways  and  means  for  car- 
rying into  effect  the  purposes  of  infinite  love,  and  infinite 
power  becomes  exhausted  ;  and  when  that  crisis  comes 
there  will  be  no  God  and  no  universe  and  no  human 
beings.  We  infer,  therefore,  that  the  destruction  of  the 
natural  universe  is  contrary  to  the  Divine  nature,  to  the 
purposes  of  the  Lord  as  declared  in  the  creation,  and  to 
human  reason. 


THE  END   OF  THE  WORLD. 


319 


The  idea  lield  by  some,  that  the  earth  will  be  remade, 
that  the  Lord  will  give  to  man  a  better  body  at  the  resur- 
rection, and  that  the  new  earth,  if  it  is  a  material  one,  will 
be  a  better  earth  than  this,  practically  accuses  the  Lord 
of  folly,  of  not  doing  the  best  for  His  children  that  He 
could,  and  that  is  to  say  that  His  love  and  wisdom  are 
not  perfect.  If  it  is  replied  that  man  finds  the  earth  very 
imperfect  and  is  con^itantly  improving  it,  the  answer  is 
that  it  is  one  of  the  perfections  of  the  earth  that  man  can 
improve  it, — it  is  one  of  the  conditions  of  life  essential  to 
his  intellectual  and  spiritual  development.  If  he  had  no 
occasion  to  call  forth  his  faculties  they  would  lie  dormant. 
If  he  saw  no  room  for  improvement,  or  found  it  impossi- 
ble to  make  improvement,  he  would  have  no  stimulus  of 
hope,  and  all  motives  to  exertion  beyond  what  was 
necessary  to  support  life  would  be  taken  away.  Man's 
nature  is  self-adjusting  to  all  the  conditions  of  life.  In- 
finite wisdom  is  embodied  in  the  creation,  and  when  men 
try  to  improve  upon  the  methods  of  infinite  wisdom  they 
show  their  ignorance  and  folly. 

But  the  doctrine  that  this  earth  or  any  part  of  the  ma- 
terial universe  is  to  be  made  over  into  a  new  world  and 
become  the  future  dwelling  of  man  after  the  resurrection 
is  materialism.  This  result  cannot  be  avoided.  Man's 
body  is  not  a  spiritual  body  after  all,  and  instead  of  going 
to  heaven  and  dwelling  in  one  of  the  mansions  in  His 
Father's  house  according  to  the  promise,  he  must  remain 
forever  in  this  world.  He  is  not  essentially  a  spiritual 
being,  but  an  earthly  one,  and  however  perfect  his  condi- 
tion may  be  as  a  material  being,  he  can  never  hope  to 
attain  to  the  glory  and  blessedness  of  a  purely  spiritual  life. 


320      FA' OGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 

But  the  whole  theory  that  this  world  is  to  be  the 
eternal  home  of  the  redeemed  is  contrarj-  to  the  oft- 
repeated  declarations  and  promises  of  the  Word.  "  My 
kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,"  the  Lord  says.  "  I  go  to 
prepare  a  place  for  you  ;  and  if  I  go  and  prepare  a  place 
for  you,  I  will  come  again,  and  receive  you  unto  myself; 
that  where  I  am,  there  ye  may  be  also."  The  whole 
tenor  of  our  Lord's  teachings  was  directed  to  prepare 
men  for  life  in  another  and  spiritual  Vorld  which  is  not  to 
be  created  at  some  future  time,  but  which  was  already  in 
existence,  and  when  the  Lord  spoke  was  the  home  of  all 
those  who  had  passed  from  earth. 

When  we  understand  the  term  "world"  as  meaning 
not  the  natural  ground  but  the  world  of  human  life  ;  es- 
pecially when  we  give  the  Greek  word  which  is  translated 
"world"  its  strict  meaning  of  "  age"  or  "  dispensation," 
how  simple  it  all  is  !  Within  historic  times  the  world  has 
more  than  once  passed  away  and  a  new  world  has  been 
created.  The  Europe  which  the  Roman  conquerors 
knew  is  gone.  The  America  which  Columbus  found  is 
passed  away  and  a  new  America  has  come  into  being. 
And  turning  our  thought  to  the  spiritual  states  of  men, 
of  which  the  Bible  always  direcdy  speaks,  the  world  has 
been  destroyed  and  a  new  world  created  as  often  as  one 
system  of  religious  truth  has  lost  its  vitality  and  its 
power  over  the  lives  of  men  and  a  new  system  has  been 
raised  up  by  the  Lord.  Not  to  go  back  to  remote 
antiquity,  the  world  was  in  comparatively  recent  times 
made  new  when  the  Christian  Dispensation  displaced 
the  Jewish  at  the  coming  of  the  Lord  ;  and  in  our  own 
day  is  taking  place  before  our  very  eyes  the  destruction 


THE  END  OF  THE  WORLD.  32 1 

and  new  creation  of  the  church  which  the  Lord  Himself 
predicted.  And  all  the  while  our  faithful  planet  keeps 
steadily  on  its  way  fulfilling  the  purpose  for  which  the 
Lord  created  it,  as  a  nursery  of  human  beings,  where 
they  may  awaken  to  consciousness  and  learn  their  first  les- 
sons of  obedience  to  the  Heavenly  Father,  then  to  pass 
on  to  His  eternal  home.  As  saith  Ecclesiastes,  "One 
generation  passeth  away,  and  another  generation  cometh  ; 
but  the  earth  abideth  for  ever. ' ' 


V 


THE  SECOND  COMING  OF  THE  LORD. 


"  They  shall  see  the  Son  of  man  coining  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven  zvith poiuer  and  great  glory.'' — Matthew  xxiv.  30. 


due  to  the  mental  and  spiritual  condition  of  humanity 
at  the  time  of  His  first  advent.  All  true  knowledge  of 
the  Lord  and  the  spiritual  world  had  long  been  lost. 
Men  were  in  a  natural  and,  for  the  most  part,  in  a  sen- 
sual state.  Their  ideas  of  God,  of  heaven,  of  His  king- 
dom and  power  and  glory,  and  of  their  relations  to  Him 
were  purely  natural.  The  disciples,  in  common  with  the 
Jewish  people,  understood  all  the  prophecies  and  prom- 
ises naturally.  The  Lord  was  literally  to  occupy  the 
throne  of  Da\  id  ;  the  enemies  over  whom  He  was  to 
triumph  were  the  Romans  and  the  other  nations  who  had 
made  war  upon  and  subdued  them.  The  "peace  on 
earth"  was  not  a  spiritual,  but  a  civil  peace.  The  bless- 
ings the  Jews  expected  from  the  Messiah  were  temporal, 
and  limited  to  their  own  nation. 

It  was  an  immense  advance  from  such  natural  and 
strictly  national  ideas  to  the  acknowledgment  that  the 
Lord's  kingdom  and  blessings  are  spiritual  and  universal. 
It  was  only  by  slow  and  painful  steps,  with  many  doubts 
and  misgivings,  and  by  the  influence  of  the  Lord's  resur- 
rection and  subsequent  appearance,  and  the  miraculous 
powers  conferred  upon  the  disciples  by  the  gift  of  the 


Second  Coming  of  the  Lord  is 


THE  SECOND  COMING  OF  THE  LORD.  323 

Spirit,  that  they  gained  a  full  and  clear  conviction  of  the 
spirituality  of  His  kingdom  and  the  fundamental  doc- 
trines which  constitute  it. 

But  these  doctrines  were  received  as  a  matter  of  faith, 
upon  Divine  or  human  authority,  as  truths  to  be  believed 
and  obeyed.  And  this  has  been  the  teaching  of  the 
Christian  Church  in  every  age.  "We  walk  by  faith." 
"We  see  through  a  glass  darkly."  The  fundamental 
doctrines  of  Christianity  are  acknowledged  to  be  a  mys- 
tery, and  in  their  reception  the  reason  must  be  kept  in 
subordination  to  faith.  The  Lord  has  taught  us  certain 
truths  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  and  we  must  believe  them, 
whether  they  accord  with  our  reason  or  not. 

A  church  based  upon  this  principle  must  come  to  an 
end,  not  because  the  principle  itself  is  not  true  as  far  as  it 
goes,  but  because  the  human  mind  is  so  constituted  that 
it  cannot  rest  in  simple  obedience.  Admitting  that  the 
doctrines  taught  are  true,  as  long  as  men  are  contented 
to  obey  them  simply,  they  will  go  right ;  but  the  moment 
they  begin  to  reason,  to  think  for  themselves,  there  must 
arise  diversity  of  opinion,  and  consequently  doubt,  espe- 
cially when  language  in  which  those  principles  are  taught 
is  capable  of  so  many  interpretations.  Discussions,  dif- 
ferences of  opinion,  dissensions,  perversions,  doubts,  dis- 
belief, and  ultimate  rejection  of  the  truth  itself  necessarily 
follow.  And  as  man  has  no  means  in  himself  of  gain- 
ing the  truth  concerning  spiritual  things,  the  Lord  must 
interpose  and  provide  some  way  to  save  him.  He  must 
come  again  in  some  form  adapted  to  man's  state,  or  he 
would  utterly  perish.  There  are  many  other  subordi- 
nate causes  which  rendered  the  second  advent  necessary. 


324      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

Every  principle  in  man's  character  and  all  his  relations  to 
the  Lord  increased  and  modified  this  necessity.  But  it  is 
sufficient  for  my  purpose  to  present  this  principal  cause. 
I  next  invite  your  attention  to  what  the  doctrines  of  the 
New  Church  teach  concerning  the  manner  of  the  Lord's 
second  coming. 

The  second  coming  is  described  in  various  ways  in  the 
Sacred  Scriptures.  In  the  twenty-fourth  chapter  of 
Matthew  and  thirtieth  verse  it  is  said,  "  They  shall  see 
the  Son  of  man  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven  with 
power  and  great  glory. ' '  As  we  understand  these  words, 
they  contain  an  exact  description  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  Lord  will  come.  By  the  "Son  of  man"  we  under- 
stand the  Divine  truth  of  the  Lord  ;  by  the  "  clouds  of 
heaven,"  the  literal  sense  of  the  Word  ;  by  the  "  great 
glory,"  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word,  or  the  Divine 
truth  as  it  really  exists  when  stripped  of  all  natural  ap- 
pearances ;  and  by  "power"  we  understand  true  spirit- 
ual power,  power  over  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men,  the 
power  which  true  knowledge  always  gives. 

I  do  not  ask  those  who  are  not  familiar  with  the  doc- 
trines of  the  New  Church  to  assent  to  this.  You  cannot 
assent  to  it  until  you  see  it  to  be  true.  All  that  I  ask  is 
that  you  will  admit  it  as  an  hypothesis  or  supposition.  If 
the  Bible  is  acknowledged  to  be  such  a  book  as  our  doc- 
trines teach  us  that  it  is,  I  am  confident  that  this  doctrine 
of  the  second  coming  will  also  be  seen  to  be  rational  and 
true.  I  shall  not  argue  the  question, — my  limits  forbid 
me  to  do  that, — but  simply  state  the  belief  of  the  New 
Church. 

Our  doctrines  declare  that  the  Sacred  Scriptures  are 


THE  SECOND  COMING  OF  THE  LORD.  325 


Divine  truth  itself.  They  contain  a  precise,  connected, 
and  logical  statement  of  all  spiritual  and  Divine  laws  and 
principles.  They  are  to  man's  spiritual  nature,  to  the 
spiritual  world  and  the  Divine  nature,  what  a  book  which 
contained  a  perfect  physiology  would  be  to  the  material 
body,  or  what  a  perfect  work  upon  mathematics  would 
be  to  all  numbers  and  geometrical  forms.  That  is,  the 
Word  contains  a  perfect  spiritual  and  Divine  philosophy 
and  a  perfect  spiritual  history  of  the  human  race  from 
its  first  creation,  and  a  perfect  prophecy  of  its  future. 
This  history  is  not  limited  to  this  world,  but  it  extends 
to  the  spiritual  world,  and  gives  us  a  complete  and  clear 
idea  of  the  nature  of  that  world  and  of  all  its  inhabitants. 
When  this  spiritual  truth  is  seen,  it  carries  with  it  the 
same  conviction  of  its  absolute  certainty  that  mathemati- 
cal truths  do  of  their  certainty  when  they  are  seen. 

This  spiritual  truth  is  as  distinct  from  the  natural  truth 
contained  in  the  letter  of  the  Word  as  the  soul  is  dis- 
tinct from  the  body.  Indeed,  the  spiritual  sense  bears 
the  same  relation  to  the  literal  or  natural  sense  that  the 
soul  bears  to  the  body.  The  Bible  was  not  given  to  man 
to  teach  him  in  what  manner  or  order  or  time  the  earth 
was  created,  to  give  him  a  history  of  the  Jews,  or  to 
tell  him  how  or  when  the  world  would  be  destroyed. 
What  is  said  upon  these  subjects  may  be  literally  true  or 
it  may  not.  It  is  of  no  consequence  to  the  real  purpose 
for  which  the  Word  was  given  to  man  whether  it  is 
naturally  true  or  not.  It  is  of  no  more  consequence 
that  the  history  of  the  Jews  should  be  true  in  every  par- 
ticular than  it  is  that  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  or 

of  Dives  and  Lazarus  should  be  an  e.xact  statement  of 

28 


326      FJiOCRESS  ly  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


natural  events  that  really  occurred.  The  only  essential 
requisite  in  the  letter  is,  that  the  natural  object  or  ac- 
tion shall  correctly  represent  the  spiritual  idea,  as  a 
man's  actions,  looks,  and  voice,  when  spontaneous,  tmly 
represent  his  affections  and  thoughts. 

The  literal  or  natural  sense  is  used  to  embody  and  con- 
vey or  express  spiritual  truth,  as  the  body  is  used  to  ex- 
press the  various  states  of  the  soul, — that  is,  the  natural 
events,  images,  and  actions  of  nature,  animals,  and  men 
are  employed  as  symbols  to  express  corresponding  spir- 
itual truths.  The  natural  sense  is,  therefore,  called  the 
covering  or  cloud,  which  in  some  places  entirely  con- 
ceals, and  in  others  only  partly  reveals  the  real  mean- 
ing. The  objects  or  events  narrated  are  natural  ciphers 
or  hieroglyphics.  The  natural  image  bears  about  the 
same  relation  to  the  spiritual  idea  that  the  printed  word 
does  to  the  natural  idea.  But  the  difference  between 
natural  and  spiritual  things  is  so  great  that  but  little  spir- 
itual truth  can  be  directly  expressed  by  the  natural  image. 
We  all  know  how  difficult  and  often  impossible  it  is 
to  express  our  affections  and  thoughts  fully  by  words. 
The  real  meaning  struggles  through  them  like  light 
through  a  cloud.  How  much  more  impossible  must  it  be 
to  express  spiritual  and  Divine  truth  in  all  its  fulness  and 
clearness  in  natural  forms  ! 

If  the  Word  is  written  in  symbols,  it  is  plain  that  the 
only  way  to  get  its  true  meaning  is  to  know  what  spirit- 
ual truths  the  natural  images  represent.  For  example, 
we  can  never  learn  how  the  Lord  is  coming,  or  what  the 
signs  of  His  coming  are,  if  we  think  only  of  wars,  earth- 
quakes, clouds,  and  material  things,  any  more  than  we 


THE  SECOND  COMING  OF  THE  LORD.  327 


could  learii  what  wars,  earthquakes,  and  clouds  are  by 
looking  at  the  printed  words  without  imagining  even  that 
they  had  any  meaning.  When  our  Lord  said  to  the 
Jews  that  they  must  eat  His  flesh  and  drink  His  blood, 
they  understood  Him  naturally,  and  they  were  astounded 
at  the  assertion.  "  How  can  this  man  give  us  his  flesh 
to  eat  ?"  "  This  is  an  hard  saying  ;  who  can  hear  it  ?' ' 
' '  From  that  time  many  of  his  disciples  went  back,  and 
walked  no  more  with  him."  They  would  not  follow 
a  man  who  told  them  such  absurd  things.  There  are 
many  persons  at  the  present  day  who  reject  the  Bible  for 
the  same  reason,  and  many  more  who  draw  entirely 
erroneous  conclusions  from  it. 

Now,  we  believe  the  key  to  this  cipher  has  been  given 
to  men,  and  that  by  means  of  it  they  can  ascertain  with 
perfect  certainty  what  spiritual  and  real  truths  the  natural 
symbols  of  the  Word  represent.  We  are  able  to  open 
the  covering,  the  cloud,  and  the  Son  of  man,  the  Divine 
truth,  comes  to  us.  But  He  comes  to  us  in  the  cloud. 
The  letter  of  the  Word  is  the  instrumentality,  the  vehicle 
in  which  He  comes  ;  we  do  not  get  the  truth  by  rejecting 
the  letter,  but  by  understanding  it.  By  means  of  this 
key,  therefore,  we  gain  access  to  the  infinite  treasures  of 
spiritual  truth. 

The  first  effect  of  this  knowledge  is  to  give  us  a  clear 
understanding  of  the  nature  of  the  Word  itself,  and  to 
save  us  from  all  the  doubts  and  difficulties  which  have 
obscured  and  troubled  readers  of  the  Bible  for  many  gen- 
erations. We  are  no  longer  troubled  because  we  find  that 
the  natural  sense  does  not  agree  with  geology  or  any 
other  science.     The  discrepancies   and  contradictions 


328      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  K'XOWLEDGE. 


contained  in  the  letter  do  not  disturb  our  faith  in  its  claims 
to  be  the  Word  of  God,  because  we  know  it  was  not 
given  to  us  to  teach  natural  science  or  the  history  of  na- 
tions. The  fact  that  a  great  part  of  it  is  occupied  with 
trivial  details,  or  prophetic  visions  which  have  no  con- 
sistent natural  meaning,  does  not  diminish  our  estimation 
of  its  Divine  origin  and  infinite  value,  because  we  know 
that  these  details,  trivial  in  themselves,  and  this  prophetic 
imagery,  are  natural  symbols  of  spiritual  things.  I 
regard  it  as  I  should  a  rough  casket  full  of  the  most 
precious  jewels.  I  do  not  stop  to  criticise  the  outside. 
I  proceed  at  once  to  open  it  and  feast  upon  the  beauty 
and  glory  within.  I  regard  it  as  I  should  a  present  of 
fruit  if  I  were  hungry.  I  do  not  stop  to  find  fault  with 
the  hard  and  bitter  shells.  I  open  them  and  satisfy  my 
want  with  the  sweet  and  savory  substances  within.  It  is 
a  letter  from  my  Father  in  heaven,  written  in  cipher, 
because  He  could  not  get  it  to  me  in  any  other  way. 
And  in  it  He  tells  me  all  about  Himself;  what  He  has 
done  and  is  doing  for  me,  what  a  beautiful  home  He  is 
preparing  for  mc,  in  what  forms  He  is  coming  for  me  to 
receive  me  unto  Himself,  and  what  I  must  do  to  meet 
and  receive  Him  and  follow  Him.  I  do  not  complain 
because  it  is  written  in  cipher.  I  do  not  reject  it  or  re- 
ceive it  with  doubt  because  the  meaning  is  not  all  ex- 
pressed upon  the  surface.  I  am  filled  with  delight  rather 
at  the  glorious  revelation  of  Himself,  and  the  precious 
promises  I  find  in  it. 

Again,  by  means  of  this  key  we  get  from  the  Word  a 
clear,  consistent,  and  rational  doctrine  concerning  spir- 
itual things  and  the  Loril  ;  a  doctrine  that  fully  satisfies 


THE  SECOND  COMING  OF  THE  LORD. 


329 


the  reason  and  all  the  wants  of  the  soul,  that  reconciles 
all  the  apparent  contradictions  in  the  letter  of  the  Word, 
that  shows  how  the  unity  and  the  trinity  are  perfectly 
consistent  with  each  other,  and  presents  the  Divine  char- 
acter in  such  a  light  that  we  can  see  how  every  attribute 
and  relation  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  Divine  love. 
The  opening  of  the  Word  removes  all  doubts  concern- 
ing those  fundamental  questions  which  have  been  debated 
for  eighteen  centuries,  antl  which  by  the  usual  methods 
of  interpretation  are  no  nearer  their  settlement  now  tlian 
they  were  when  they  first  arose. 

But  the  spiritual  understanding  of  the  Word  not  only 
settles  satisfactorily  and  rationally  all  the  doctrinal  ques- 
tions which  have  agitated  the  Christian  Church  from  its 
early  history,  it  elevates  and  indefinitely  enlarges  the  field 
of  knowledge.  We  gain  a  clear  and  rational  knowledge 
not  only  of  the  existence,  but  of  the  nature  of  the  spir- 
itual world  and  of  man  as  a  spiritual  being.  By  drawing 
aside  the  veil  of  the  letter  a  new  world  and  a  new  life 
are  revealed  to  the  reason  and  the  heart. 

Every  one  knows  what  clouds  of  doubt  and  uncer- 
tainty and  utter  darkness  surround  death  and  all  subjects 
connected  with  the  spiritual  world.  Many  persons  really 
deny  its  existence  ;  most  persons  practically  do  so  ;  and 
it  is  regarded  as  a  very  high  attainment  in  spiritual  prog- 
ress when  there  are  no  fears  of  death  and  no  doubts 
about  the  future,  when  all  those  momentous  subjects 
which  concern  our  eternal  welfare  are  regarded  as  mat- 
ters of  faith,  and  we  are  willing  to  shut  our  eyes  and 
push  ofT  into  the  unknown  dark.    But  in  the  spiritual 

sense  of  the  Word  these  subjects  are  revealed  in  clear 

28* 


330     PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

light.  Those  whose  understandings  are  elevated  into 
this  light  not  only  believe,  they  know,  that  the  spirit  is 
the  real  man,  that  death  is  a  step  in  life,  that  the  spir- 
itual world  is  a  real  world  ;  and  all  the  laws  of  that  world 
and  the  nature  of  human  beings  in  it,  their  social,  civil, 
and  spiritual  relations  to  one  another,  their  modes  of 
life,  their  sorrows  and  their  joys,  are  so  clearly  revealed 
that  they  can  see  them  and  understand  them  as  fully  as 
they  can  any  natural  laws.  They  come  home  to  them 
with  the  conviction  of  certain  knowledge. 

We  not  only  gain  certain  knowledge  upon  spiritual 
subjects,  which  were  the  mere  objects  of  faith  before,  but 
this  spiritual  glory  sheds  a  clearer  light  upon  all  material 
things  and  earthly  interests  ;  it  gives  a  new  meaning  to 
all  material  things  and  to  all  human  relations  ;  it  removes 
the  curse  from  labor  ;  it  lifts  the  burdens  of  life  from  the 
heart ;  it  soh'es  its  enigmas  ;  it  takes  the  sting  from  care 
and  death,  and  gives  a  new  zest  to  every  joy  ;  it  throws 
a  new  light  upon  every  path  ;  and  what  is  of  far  more 
importance,  it  shows  how  all  human,  earthly  paths  open 
into  spiritual  ones.  This  is  its  great,  inestimable  service, 
because  it  is  by  means  of  this  that  it  performs  all  others. 
It  shows  the  intimate  relations  between  this  life  and  the 
life  beyond,  between  earthly  and  spiritual  things.  In  its 
pure  light  we  see  clearly  that  natural  things  are  not  for 
themselves  alone.  The  labor,  the  wealth,  the  skill,  the 
art,  the  science,  the  beauty,  the  graces,  the  joys,  the 
power  and  glory  of  this  life  are  not  for  this  life  alone  or 
primarily  ;  they  are  only  the  wonderful  means  to  a  more 
glorious  end.  They  are  so  rich,  various,  complex  in 
their  forms  and  relations  ;  they  so  far  surpass  all  human 


THE  SECOND  COMING  OF  THE  LORD.  331 


wisdom  that  men  have  mistaken  them  for  the  final  end 
instead  of  the  means  to  it.  The  scaffolding  is  so  com- 
plex, so  beautifully  finished,  so  spacious  and  in  itself  de- 
sirable, that  men  have  regarded  it  as  the  building  itself 
They  cannot  conceive  how  the  Lord  can  be  so  prodigal 
of  power  and  riches  as  to  spend  so  much  for  a  mere 
temporary  purpose.  But  when  He  comes  in  the  glory 
of  spiritual  light,  they  see  that  He  leaves  nothing  un- 
done, even  for  the  momentary  good  of  His  children  ; 
and  that  the  most  beautiful  things  of  this  life,  even  the 
human  body  which  is  a  universe  in  itself,  are  only  the 
coarse  and  hard  coverings  and  rough  doors  which  open 
to  the  real  mansion  and  the  real  world  within. 

While,  therefore,  this  new  glory  corrects  our  estimate 
of  all  earthly  things,  and  shows  that  they  are  mere  in- 
struments to  higher  things,  the  steps  by  which  we  enter 
the  mansions  of  our  eternal  home,  it  does  not  in  the 
least  diminish  their  value.  It  increases  it  rather,  because 
it  shows  their  true  use.  The  value  of  every  instrument 
is  not  in  itself,  but  in  the  good  it  helps  us  to  attain. 
Measured  by  this  rule  and  in  the  light  of  spiritual  truth, 
we  can  see  that  gold  has  more  value  than  the  worldling 
and  the  miser  put  upon  it.  Knowledge  is  worth  incon- 
ceivably more  for  its  spiritual  than  for  its  natural  use  ; 
and  civil  power  is  a  greater  good  than  the  most  ambitious 
ever  believed  it  to  be.  Even  poverty  and  pain  and  dis- 
appointment may  have  an  inestimable  value,  and  death 
itself  is  but  the  open  portal  to  an  endless  life. 

Again,  this  coming  of  the  Lord  not  only  throws  a  new 
light  upon  man  and  nature  ;  it  is  a  new  light  in  him.  So 
long  as  the  truth  remains  in  the  book  it  gives  us  no 


-132      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  A'XOJVLEDGE. 


light  ;  the  images  must  be  transferred  to  our  own  minds. 
Then  the  clouds  and  the  glory  are  both  there.  The 
understanding  becomes  elevated,  enlarged,  illuminated, 
and  purified.  The  intellectual  eye  is  opened  to  discern 
spiritual  truth,  and  the  whole  mind  is  illuminated  with  a 
new  light  and  comes  more  directly  under  the  influence 
of  the  Spirit  of  truth  ;  the  Di\  ine  promise  is  fulfilled, 
"  He  shall  take  of  mine,  and  shall  show  it  unto  you." 

The  gradual  and  ultimate  effect  of  this  clear,  rational, 
spiritual  light  must  be  to  settle  all  theological  disputes 
concerning  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  religion,  and 
consequently  it  must  produce  that  unity  in  the  church 
which  every  good  man  knows  to  be  so  desirable,  and 
which  the  church  has  sought  to  effect  by  e.Kternal  and 
arbitrary  means.  This  unity  will  be  obtained  through 
the  largest  freedom  of  investigation  and  discussion  ;  it 
will  come  from  within.  This  new  spiritual  light  must 
change  the  whole  character  of  social,  ci\  il,  and  industrial 
life,  because  it  changes  the  ends  or  purposes  of  life.  It 
brings  humanity  under  the  special  guidance  and  control 
of  infinite  wisdom,  because  the  coming,  the  power,  and 
the  glory  are  in  the  clouds,  in  the  Divine  truth  in  natural 
forms,  as  they  exist  in  human  minds.  So  the  Lord's 
kingdom  which  is  within  us  comes,  and  His  will  is  done 
on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  Surely  no  one  can  deny 
that  such  a  coming  of  the  Lord  must  effect  such  results. 
Does  it  not  also  involve  the  exercise  of  the  greatest 
power  and  redound  the  most  fully  to  His  glory  ? 

The  common  ideas  of  power  are  very  natural  and  sen- 
suous. We  judge  too  much  by  the  noise  and  commo- 
tion and  tlie  vast  array  of  means,  by  those  effects  which 


THE  SECOND  COMING  OF  THE  LORD.  333 

strike  the  senses.  We  think  of  the  earthquake  which 
topples  down  the  firmest  structures  of  man  and  shakes 
continents,  of  the  cataract  sweeping  along  in  its  restless 
current  every  obstruction  and  dashing  it  into  its  abyss, 
of  the  ocean  and  the  storm.  But  these  are  not  the  true 
types  of  even  physical  power.  If  the  force  which  rifts 
and  rends  and  sweeps  from  its  foundations  is  so  great, 
what  must  that  power  be  which  draws  all  things  to  a 
common  centre  and  binds  them  together?  There  is 
more  physical  power  exerted  in  a  mild  May  morning  by 
the  force  of  attraction  in  growing  grass  and  blossoming 
flowers  and  by  the  balmy  heat  that  penetrates  every- 
where and  permeates  every  grain  of  mould  and  every 
germ-cell  of  every  plant  than  in  earthquake  and  ocean, 
cataract  and  storm.  The  power  that  destroys  is  excep- 
tional, local,  temporary,  while  that  which  creates,  sus- 
tains, and  saves  is  omnipresent  and  ever  operating.  The 
sun  coming  in  the  summer  clouds,  in  the  power  of  heat 
and  the  glory  of  light,  is  the  perfect  physical  type  of  the 
coming  of  the  Son  of  man,  in  the  power  of  His  love  and 
the  glory  of  His  truth.  As  the  sun  dissolves  the  bonds 
in  which  frost  holds  the  earth  and  bids  the  imprisoned 
rivulets  go  free  on  errands  of  love  and  use  ;  as  it  opens 
the  closed  cells  of  leaves,  blossoms,  and  fruit  to  gladden 
the  eye  with  their  beauty  and  feed  the  world  with  their 
substance  ;  as  it  visits  every  particle  of  mould  and  every 
cell  of  plant  and  animal  and  gives  to  each  according  to 
its  needs  the  power  to  perform  its  use,  so  will  the  Son  of 
man  come  to  every  imprisoned  mind,  to  give  freedom  to 
every  thought  and  affection,  power  to  perform  its  ap- 
pointed use,  and  guidance  to  attain  its  end. 


334      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

We  make  the  same  mistake  in  our  estimate  of  civil 
power.  We  think  of  mighty  armies  marching  with 
resistless  might  to  subjugate  great  peoples,  of  vast  fleets 
sweeping  over  the  sea  and  sinking  the  commerce  of 
nations  in  its  waves  ;  we  think  of  the  power  to  overcome 
enemies,  to  subjugate,  to  imprison,  to  destroy.  But 
that  is  not  true  power.  He  who  operates  on  others  only 
from  without,  by  restraints,  by  fears,  by  compulsions,  may 
restrain  their  external  movements,  but  he  does  not  con- 
trol their  affections  and  thoughts.  True  civil  power  con- 
sists in  guiding  the  will  of  the  people  ;  in  making  their 
power  yours  by  their  own  choice.  Every  mind  you  can 
control  in  this  mild,  unobtrusive,  invisible  way  increases 
your  power  by  the  amount  of  its  own.  A  king  or  presi- 
dent who  could  so  win  the  confidence  and  love  of  a  great 
people  would  have  in  his  control  a  power  unknown  to 
any  tyrant  that  ever  lived  upon  earth.  Not  only  the 
hands  and  physical  strength  of  the  people  are  his,  but 
those  higher  faculties  of  knowledge  and  skill  and  art  and 
intelligence  and  will. 

The  same  principle  applies  to  moral  and  spiritual 
power.  The  church  has  been  and  still  is  an  immense 
power  in  the  world,  and  the  ruling  minds  have  sought  to 
extend  it  by  external  means,  by  compelling  assent  to  cer- 
tain dogmas  and  conformity  to  certain  external  rites. 
Suppose  the  Pope  sitting  in  the  seat  of  St.  Peter  could 
burn  every  book  and  silence  every  voice  which  did  not 
speak  the  shibboleth  of  Rome,  would  that  be  true 
power  ?  Would  he  not  destroy  more  power  than  he  ex- 
ercised ?  Would  he  not  put  out  the  lights  of  the  world  ? 
Would  he  not  obstruct  and  thwart  and  make  useless  the 


THE  SECOND  COMIXG  OF  THE  LORD.  335 


mightiest  forces  that  are  now  awakening  man  to  new  life? 
And  yet  how  imposing  such  a  power  would  be  !  Con- 
ceive it  to  extend  over  the  whole  earth  !  An  edict  issued 
from  Rome  reaches  every  man  and  woman  and  child 
upon  the  earth,  dictates  to  them  what  they  shall  think 
and  do,  how  and  when  they  shall  pray.  Awful  power  ! 
What  grandeur  of  architecture  would  be  embodied  in 
the  churches  !  What  beauty  and  splendor  of  orna- 
ment would  adorn  them  !  What  pomp  of  ritual  and 
form  would  characterize  the  worship  !  What  unity  and 
peace  would  everywhere  reign  !  But  would  there  be  as 
much  life  and  power  in  humanity  as  there  is  now  ? 
Would  human  faculties  have  the  same  free  scope  and  the 
same  incentives  to  activity  ?  If  they  would,  then  the 
history  of  humanity  is  a  lie.  No,  with  all  our  distrac- 
tions and  collision  of  interest  and  opinion,  there  is  incon- 
ceivably more  power  exercised  for  human  good  than 
could  be  in  such  a  state  of  forced  uniformity  and  exter- 
nal restraint. 

It  is  said  that  some  of  the  icebergs  are  truly  grand  and 
beautiful.  They  rise  hundreds  of  feet  above  the  ocean 
and  cover  many  roods  of  its  surface.  They  are  so  com- 
pact and  solid  that  they  seem  capable  of  resisting  every 
force.  They  crush  the  strongest  ships  when  caught  in 
their  embrace  as  easily  as  the  bark  canoe.  They  lift 
from  their  beds  and  carry  to  remote  distances  immense 
rocks  which  no  human  power  could  move.  And  yet 
there  are  unseen  forces  playing  upon  them  and  pene- 
trating them  above  and  below,  which  gradually  dissipate 
their  form  and  substance  and  bear  their  particles  on  in- 
visible wings  aloft  into  the  sky  and  scatter  them  in  dews 


336      PROGRESS  I.V  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


and  showers  over  a  continent.  Now  they  carry  suste- 
nance to  the  plant,  refresh  the  thirsty,  gather  in  streams 
and  drive  the  wheels  of  power,  or,  vitaHzed  with  heat,  move 
vast  engines,  bearing  man's  burdens  and  doing  his  work. 
Such  is  the  difference  between  a  government  or  a  church 
crystaUized  into  imposing  ceremonies  and  dead  formal- 
ities, and  the  human  faculties  set  free  from  restraint  and 
vitalized  by  pure  affections  and  employed  in  multiplied 
specific  forms  for  human  good.  Such  is  the  difierence 
between  apparent  and  real  power. 

The  same  principles  apply  to  glory  as  to  power.  The 
true  glory  of  a  king  does  not  consist  in  the  pomp  and 
splendors  of  his  court,  the  magnificence  of  his  retinue, 
and  the  obsequious  honors  of  the  multitude,  or  the  fame 
of  his  exploits,  but  in  the  wisdom  and  beneficence  of 
his  government  ;  in  the  direction  he  gives  to  the  com- 
mon affairs  of  his  kingdom  and  the  provision  he  makes 
for  all  his  subjects  ;  the  freedom  he  secures  for  them  ;  the 
avenues  he  opens  for  the  development  of  every  faculty 
and  the  attainment  of  every  good.  It  is  not  the  outside 
splendor  and  show,  but  the  quiet,  unobtrusive,  genuine 
worth  that  constitutes  true  human  glory.  This  has  been 
and  must  ever  be  the  verdict  of  humanity.  The  glory 
of  truth  outshines  the  splendors  of  the  sun. 

Now  let  us  apply  these  principles  to  the  coming  of 
the  Lord.  If,  as  He  Himself  declares,  He  is  coming  in 
power  and  great  glory,  shall  we  look  for  power  and 
glory  in  their  lowest  and  most  external  forms  ? 

According  to  the  common  idea,  He  is  coming  in  the 
clouds  that  float  over  the  earth.  He  is  to  be  attended 
with  a  magnificent  retinue  of  angels  flying  to  every  part 


THE  S/iCOND  COMING  OF  THE  LORD. 


337 


of  land  and  sea,  to  awaken  the  sleeping  dead  with  the 
terrible  blast  of  their  trumpets.  He  will  establish  His 
throne  in  the  heavens,  from  which  will  issue  terrific  light- 
nings ;  the  earth  will  quake  and  tremble  at  His  presence  ; 
the  sun  will  grow  dark  in  the  splendors  of  His  glory  ;  the 
moon  will  not  give  her  light,  the  stars  will  fall  from 
heaven,  and  the  powers  of  the  heavens  will  be  shaken. 
The  whole  material  universe  will  be  in  wild  commotion 
and  rushing  madly  to  ruin.  And  man  and  timid  woman 
and  fearful  childhood,  trembling,  affrighted,  aghast  at 
these  awful  commotions,  will,  it  is  thought,  be  summoned 
before  the  dread  tribunal  ;  the  wicked  to  hear  their 
awful  doom,  the  righteous  to  be  introduced  into  their 
eternal  homes.  Would  that  be  a  greater  exercise  of 
power  than  it  requires  to  keep  all  these  shining  worlds  in 
perpetual  and  harmonious  play  ?  Would  it  be  more 
glorious  to  make  all  knees  tremble  than  it  would  to  give 
them  strength  to  go  on  their  errands  of  duty  and  love  ; 
to  paralyze  all  hearts  with  fear,  than  to  fill  them  with  the 
quiet  joys  of  home  or  the  holy  aspirations  of  heaven  ? 

Or  suppose  the  earth  to  be  regenerated  and  the  Lord 
to  have  established  His  throne  upon  it  and  to  be  the 
glorious  King  of  the  righteous?  The  whole  earth  has 
become  a  paradise,  and  the  comparatively  few  who  have 
believed  on  Him  are  enjoying  its  beauty  and  peace,  and 
will  continue  to  do  so  forever.  Is  that  as  great  or  benev- 
olent an  exercise  of  power  as  it  would  be  to  make  the 
earth  the  gradually  improving  home  of  successive  gen- 
erations of  immortal  beings  forever  ;  of  beings .  who  are 
to  be  transferred  in  a  few  days  or  years  at  the  most  to  a 
world  whose  perfections  are  inconceivably  greater  than 
V      w  29 


338     PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


those  of  a  material  world  can  ever  be,  and  whose  means 
of  development  and  capacities  for  happiness  surpass  all 
our  conceptions  ?  I  do  not  see  how  there  can  be  but  one 
answer  to  this  question. 

View  the  subject,  then,  in  whatever  aspect  we  please, 
how  can  we  resist  the  conclusion  that  if  the  Lord  is 
coming  in  person  to  the  natural  sight  of  men,  according 
to  the  literal  understanding  of  the  Scriptures,  He  is  not 
coming  in  the  highest,  but  rather  in  the  lowest  degree  of 
power  and  glory. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  Is  it  not  equally  or  much  more 
absurd  to  suppose  that  nothing  more  is  meant  by  the 
Lord's  coming — a  coming  which  we  must  believe,  if  we 
believe  anything  about  it,  is  to  work  the  greatest  changes 
upon  the  earth  and  in  all  human  conditions — than  that 
men  are  to  get  new  truths  from  a  book  ?  Let  us  look  at 
the  question  a  moment  and  see  whether  it  is  absurd  or 
not. 

The  true  object  of  the  Lord's  coming  must  be  to  eftect 
the  greatest  good  to  humanity.  This  no  rational  mind 
can  deny.  It  is  to  exercise  the  most  power  over  the  un- 
derstandings and  wills  of  men.  The  question  is,  Which 
would  effect  His  purposes  the  most  fully,  a  jiersonal 
coming,  or  the  revelation  of  new  and  higher  forms  of 
spiritual  truth  ? 

If  the  Lord  comes  to  destroy  the  earth  and  to  put  an  end 
to  the  creation  of  human  souls,  it  is  self-evident  that  He 
puts  a  limit  to  the  exercise  of  His  power  at  once.  But 
suppo.se  He  should  come  and  establish  His  throne  here, 
and  gox  ern  men  directly.  Suppose  He  should  come  as 
many  Christians  expect  Him,  with  irresistible  power,  with 


THE  SECOND  COMING  OF  THE  LORD.  339 

great  magnificence,  with  the  richest  rewards  for  His  friends 
and  the  most  terrible  punishment  for  His  enemies.  Sup- 
pose He  were  to  establish  His  government  over  the  nations 
of  the  earth  to-day.  There  is  not  a  mercenary  politician, 
or  an  ofifice  seeker,  or  a  contract  hunter  that  would  not 
hasten  to  His  courts  and  seek  His  favor.  The  stock  ex- 
change and  legislative  and  congressional  halls  would  be 
changed  into  houses  of  prayer,  and  Jew  and  Gentile 
would  vie  with  each  other  in  devotion.  Why  ?  Because 
they  would  be  suddenly  converted  to  a  love  for  truth, 
justice,  purity  ?  Because  they  are  humble  and  penitent 
for  the  past  and  sincerely  desire  Divine  aid  to  assist  them 
in  overcoming  their  evils  and  living  a  heavenly  life  ?  No, 
but  that  "thrift  may  follow  fawning."  And  Christians 
themselves  must  be  much  changed  before  they  could 
bear  such  power  and  favor,  or  all  observation  and  his- 
tory are  false.  If  you  say,  the  Lord  would  be  omniscient 
and  know  the  hearts  of  all  men,  and  would  spurn  from 
His  presence  all  hypocrites,  that  does  not  alter  the  re- 
sult. Suppose  He  spurns  them  from  His  presence,  or 
sends  them  to  hell,  the  result  is  the  same.  He  loses  His 
power  over  their  understandings  and  hearts.  He  fails  in 
the  very  object  of  His  mission.  He  could  control  out- 
ward actions  by  external  power,  but  the  will  and  the  un- 
derstanding cannot  be  forced.  The  mind  must  be  in- 
structed, the  will  and  the  affections  must  be  led  and 
gradually  developed  by  their  own  exercise.  Even  man's 
physical  powers  cannot  be  forced  beyond  their  own 
strength.  Samson  could  not  compel  an  infant  to  walk. 
It  can  gain  the  strength  or  acquire  the  skill  to  do  it  in  no 
other  way  than  by  walking.    The  wisest  teachers  cannot 


340      PROGRESS  I.V  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


force  the  mind  beyond  its  own  capacity.  The  attempt  to 
do  it  often  injures  its  delicate  organization.  The  Lcjrd 
has  all  knowledge  and  all  power,  but  the  human  mind 
can  only  receive  according  to  its  capacity  and  the  laws 
which  the  Lord  has  implanted  within  it.  No,  every  fact 
of  human  experience,  every  natural,  spiritual,  and  Di- 
vine law,  leads  to  the  conclusion,  that  by  coming  in  per- 
son with  display  of  power  and  glory  the  Lord  would 
defeat  the  very  ends  for  which  He  created  and  sustains 
humanity. 

Suppose,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  Lord  has  given  to 
man  a  Book  embodying  His  will,  the  principles  of  His  own 
being,  the  modes  of  His  life,  the  exis^tence  and  nature  of 
the  spiritual  world,  the  joys  of  heaven  and  the  sorrows 
of  hell,  and  pointing  out  clearly  the  way  in  which  man 
may  escape  the  one  and  attain  the  other.  These  Di\  ine 
laws  and  principles  of  human  life  are  so  expressed  that 
they  are  adapted  to  every  state  and  condition  of  society, 
giving  natural  truth  to  the  natural  mind,  and  rising  and 
opening  as  man  advances,  supplying  milk  for  babes  and 
meat  for  men.  When  at  length  man  is  prepared  for  it, 
the  Lord  gives  him  a  key  which  opens  a  distinct  plane  of 
spiritual  truths  that  satisfy  the  reason,  illuminate  the 
understanding,  and  feed  with  the  bread  of  heaven  every 
want  of  the  heart.  Has  He  not  embodied  His  power 
and  glory  in  the  most  benignant,  the  wisest  and  most 
efficacious  form  ? 

According  to  our  belief,  there  are  signs  in  that  Book 
which  represent  every  principle  in  the  Divine  being,  and 
every  mode  of  Di\  ine  and  human  operation.  As  educa- 
tion and  civilization  advance,  the  Book  can  be  multiplied 


THE  SECOND  COMING  OF  THE  LORD.  341 

and  introduced  into  every  liome  and  imbue  the  life  of  every 
inmate  within.  The  traveller  can  take  it  on  his  journey  ; 
the  lonely  prisoner  in  his  cell  can  learn  the  way  to  gain 
true  spiritual  freedom  ;  the  sick  man  in  his  chamber  can 
find  in  it  a  physician  which  will  cure  every  spiritual  dis- 
ease. As  its  true  principles  become  known,  and  the 
lives  of  men  are  formed  after  their  laws,  these  principles 
will  rule  in  the  marts  of  commerce  and  in  the  halls  of 
legislation  ;  they  will  guide  the  hands  of  civil  rulers,  and 
human  laws  will  be  the  outward  and  natural  expression 
of  Divine  laws.  The  graceful  courtesies  and  sweet 
charities  which  they  inculcate  will  rule  in  social  life,  and 
every  home  will  be  modelled  after  the  heavenly  home 
which  they  reveal.  By  means  of  these  spiritual  truths 
the  Lord  will  come  to  every  understanding,  illuminate  it 
with  the  light  of  heaven,  and  guide  it  in  perfect  freedom 
according  to  the  laws  of  His  own  life.  He  sits  upon 
His  throne  and  establishes  His  kingdom,  not  in  one 
place  alone,  but  in  every  heart.  And  there  He  dwells  in 
all  the  fulness  of  the  heart's  capacity  to  receive  Him, 
constantly  expanding  every  faculty  and  making  more 
room  for  Himself.  He  takes  the  helm  of  every  indi- 
vidual life  in  His  own  hand,  and  steers  its  course  towards 
heaven. 

As  men  yield  more  implicitly  to  the  Divine  guidance, 
and  come  more  fully  under  these  principles,  the  heavens 
open,  the  spiritual  world  becomes  the  great  reality.  In 
their  clear  vision  men  see  it  sliining  through  every 
natural  form  and  human  use.  They  know  that  they  are 
already  in  it,  and  while  they  do  their  duties  with  cheer- 
ful hearts  and  willing  feet,  they  look  forward  to  the  time 

29* 


342      PROGRESS  LV  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

when  the  Lord  shall  call  them  home,  with  subdued 
patience  but  unspeakable  joy. 

This  is  the  New- Church  doctrine  of  the  Second 
Coming.  True  or  not,  can  you  conceive  of  any  other 
form  in  which  the  Lord  could  come  with  so  much  power 
that  reaches  to  the  centre  of  human  life  and  places 
humanity  so  fully  under  its  beneficent  control,  and  with 
so  great  glory  to  Himself  and  blessing  to  His  chil- 
dren ? 


HOW  TO  GET  THE  MOST  GOOD  OUT  OF  LABOR 
AND  THIS  WORLD. 


^'  I  pray  not  thai  thou  shouldest  take  them  out  of  the  world, 
but  that  thou  shouldest  keep  theui  from  the  evil.''' — ^John  xvii.  15. 

DELIGION  has  generally  been  regarded  as  something 
foreign  to  man's  nature  and  hostile  to  this  world,  as 
something  to  be  superinduced  upon  him  or  added  to  him 
to  supply  a  want  which  is  not  inherent  in  his  nature.  It 
is  not  regarded  as  an  outgrowth  and  normal  develop- 
ment of  his  faculties  as  he  was  created  in  the  image  of 
God,  but  rather  as  something  to  get,  as  a  criminal  obtains 
a  pardon  and  a  release  from  the  penalty  of  crime,  or  a 
favor  which  he  receives  as  a  gift.  It  is  regarded  as  some- 
thing distinct  from  his  daily  life.  It  is  a  sentiment,  or  a 
creed.  Religion  is  not  infrequently  spoken  of  as  es- 
pecially useful  to  woman  and  adapted  to  her  nature  and 
wants,  while  men  have  not  so  much  need  of  it,  implying 
that  it  is  not  an  essential  factor  of  human  nature.  Its 
essential  use  is  supposed  to  consist  in  obtaining  a  remis- 
sion of  the  punishment  of  our  sins  and  securing  our 
happiness  in  the  future  life.  It  looks  more  to  the  future 
than  the  present,  mainly  to  the  spiritual  world  rather 
than  to  this  world.  Its  exercises  and  duties  have  only  a 
remote  connection  with  the  common  labors,  duties,  and 
enjoyments  of  this  life. 

What  help  does  religion  give  to  the  great  majority  of 

343 


344      PROGRESS  I.V  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 

Christian  people  in  tlieir  daily  labor?  Does  it  sustain 
them  in  it  ?  Does  it  make  useful  labor  honorable  ?  Do 
its  doctrines,  as  they  are  generally  understood  and 
taught,  tend  to  make  the  ordinary  duties  of  life  pleasant 
and  a  means  of  expressing  our  love  for  others  ? 

On  the  contrary,  is  it  not  true  that  useful  labor  is  gen- 
erally regarded  as  a  curse  ?  that  there  is  thought  to  be 
something  ignoble  and  degrading  in  it  ?  and  that  those 
who  are  able  to  live  without  it  are  the  favorites  of  for- 
tune ?  How  is  a  woman  regarded  who  is  compelled  to 
support  herself  by  sewing  or  teaching  or  domestic  ser- 
vice ?  Compare  her  lot  with  the  lot  of  one  who  is  under 
no  necessity  of  doing  useful  work  ;  whose  delicate  hands 
are  never  soiled  and  hardened  by  contact  with  the  imple- 
ments of  domestic  service,  and  whose  face  is  never  ex- 
posed to  the  sun  unless  in  travel,  or  lawn  tennis,  or  some 
form  of  amusement  ;  who  spends  her  time  in  reading 
novels,  or  embroidery,  or  chatting  with  companions 
about  the  last  party  or  the  next  one.  How  fortunate 
and  enviable  is  the  position  of  such  a  one  compared  with 
her  poor  sister  !  She  has  escaped  the  primal  curse. 
Like  the  lilies  of  the  field,  she  toils  not  neither  does  she 
spin,  but  is  delicately  dressed. 

How  often  we  hear  it  said  of  a  young  man  who  has 
money,  that  he  is  independent!  He  is  not  laid  under 
the  necessity  of  doing  any  useful  work.  He  is  in  perfect 
freedom  to  go  where  he  pleases.  He  can  travel ;  he  can 
amuse  himself  He  has  no  exacting  necessities,  no  hard 
taskmaster  to  call  him  up  early  and  compel  him  to  work 
late.  He,  too,  has  escaped  the  curse  of  useful  and  regu- 
lar labor  with  his  hands.    This  is  the  verdict  of  the 


HOiy  JO  GET  THE  MOST  GOOD  OUT  OE  LABOR.  345 


world,  of  the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich,  of  the  saint  as 
well  as  the  sinner.  A  laborer  spoke  the  general  senti- 
ment when  asked  what  he  would  do  if  a  fortune  were 
left  him,  when  he  said,  "  I  would  throw  down  my  spade 
and  never  do  another  stroke  of  work."  Consider  the 
meaning  of  the  word  "  fortune."  One  man  has  lost  his 
fortune  ;  another  has  become  heir  to  a  fortune.  Does  it 
not  mean  riches,  freedom  from  the  necessity  of  daily 
labor  for  a  li\  ing,  freedom  from  obligation  to  perform  any 
use  to  others  except  it  may  be  some  polite  social  service  ? 

The  church  is  in  a  great  measure  responsible  for  this 
mistake  and  its  unhappy  consequences.  It  teaches  that 
labor  is  a  curse.  The  error  originated  in  part  in  an 
entire  misunderstanding  of  the  curse  pronounced  upon 
man,  "  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread," 
and  of  the  meaning  of  labor  and  rest  in  the  Scriptures. 
Labor  is  supposed  to  mean  useful  work,  and  rest  cessation 
from  it.  But  this  is  not  their  meaning.  If  it  were,  could 
our  Lord  have  said,  "  My  Father  worketh  hitherto  and  I 
work"  ?  By  labor  is  meant  conflict  between  good  and 
evil  in  our  minds,  and  by  rest  the  cessation  of  the  con- 
flict. But  the  Christian  world  has  understood  rest  to 
mean  cessation  from  all  useful  service.  Consequently 
heaven  is  regarded  as  a  state  of  eternal  idleness,  only 
relieved  by  the  diversion  of  song,  and  possibly  by  some 
social  intercourse  between  the  shadows  of  human  beings 
in  the  shadow  of  a  world.  This  freedom  from  the  neces- 
sity of  all  useful  action  is  regarded  as  the  highest  ideal 
of  happiness.  One  of  the  common  and  absurd  miscon- 
ceptions of  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  is,  that 
they  teach  that  we  shall  pursue  the  same  employments  in 


346      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

the  other  Hfe  that  we  do  in  this  world.  That  would  be 
impossible  in  the  nature  of  things.  But  we  do  believe 
that  the  widest  field  will  be  opened  for  the  exercise  of 
every  good  affection  and  orderly  intellectual  faculty  ;  that 
every  one  will  have  some  employment  in  which  he  can 
perform  some  use  to  others  and  make  it  the  means  of 
expressing  his  affection  and  of  communicating  and 
receiving  delight.  I  can  conceive  of  no  more  terrible 
fate  than  to  be  compelled  to  eternal  idleness,  or  to  feel 
the  stirring  and  impulse  of  immortal  affections  with  no 
power  of  expressing  them  in  useful  service.  All  delight, 
all  happiness  consists  in  some  form  of  action.  The 
reverse  of  conscious  action  is  death. 

The  same  fatal  error  has  been  made  in  religious  teach- 
ing concerning  the  material  world  as  in  respect  to  labor. 
It  has  been  regarded  as  a  poor,  mean,  bad  world,  hostile 
to  man's  highest  interests,  a  world  to  be  despised  and 
rejected  and  trampled  under  foot.  Yet  the  very  act  of 
departure  from  it,  which  men  call  death,  is  thought  to  be 
the  greatest  curse  and  the  severest  punishment ;  there- 
are  few  who  are  eager  to  leave  the  world.  But  there  is 
no  imperfection  in  the  world.  When  the  Lord  created 
it  He  pronounced  it  very  good.  It  is  perfectly  adapted 
to  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  created.  It  is  not  the 
world  that  is  at  fault,  but  the  people  who  dwell  in  it,  and 
the  misuse  they  make  of  it.  Religious  teachers  have 
mistaken  the  material  world  for  the  supreme  love  of  it, 
the  Lord's  hostility  to  error  and  sin  for  hatred  of  the  sin- 
ner, and  the  immutable  principles  and  methods  of  the 
Divine  wisdom  for  an  arbitrary  and  almighty  wilfulnesss. 
The  Lord  is  represented  as  being  above  law,  which 


HOIV  TO  GET  THE  MOST  GOOD  OUT  OF  LABOR.  347 

is  impossible  in  the  nature  of  things,  because  He  is  law 
in  its  origin,  and  to  act  contrary  to  it  would  be  to  act 
contrary  to  Himself. 

These  mistaken  views  of  the  Lord's  character  and 
relations  to  men,  and  the  purpose  of  man's  life  in  this 
world,  have  cast  a  gloom  over  human  minds.  They 
have  filled  the  heart  with  groundless  fears.  They  have 
reversed  the  true  order  of  all  man's  relations  to  the  world 
and  to  the  Lord.  They  have  robbed  man  of  his  best 
Friend  and  the  most  powerful  means  of  gaining  his 
highest  good.  They  have  mixed  bitterness  in  the  cup  of 
all  natural  delights,  turned  light  into  darkness,  confi- 
dence into  distrust,  hope  into  doubt  and  despair. 

The  New  Church  entirely  reverses  this  mistaken  view 
of  life  in  this  world.  It  corrects  groundless  misappre- 
hensions and  places  them  where  they  belong  ;  it  dispels 
baseless  fears  and  reveals  the  true  cause  for  real  ones  ;  it 
shows  man  his  true  relation  to  the  Lord  and  the  Lord's 
aspect  to  man.  It  dispels  the  appearances  and  illusions 
of  the  senses,  and  shows  man  how  to  get  the  greatest 
good  out  of  this  life  and  at  the  same  time  prepare  for 
future  happiness.  It  gives  him  the  knowledge  and 
power  to  get  rest  out  of  labor,  comfort  out  of  suffering, 
joy  out  of  sorrow,  a  substantial  and  permanent  good  out 
of  transitory  possessions,  help  even  from  his  enemies, 
success  from  his  failures, — in  a  word,  to  make  all  things 
and  all  beings  work  together  for  his  highest  good.  Let 
us  see  in  some  particulars  how  the  New  Church  helps  us 
to  find  light  in  darkness,  blessings  in  curses,  friends  in 
enemies,  and  good  in  everything. 

First  let  us  look,  at  labor,  which  is  generally  regarded 


348      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


as  the  primal  and  bitter  curse.  By  labor  I  mean  every  form 
of  it,  from  work  with  the  hands  to  work  with  brain  and 
heart.  How  much  of  it  is  basely  servile  !  How  much  of 
it  is  done  from  compulsion  !  How  much  of  it  is  repulsive 
to  natural  taste  and  feeling  !  The  limbs  are  weary,  the  heart 
faints,  the  brain  aches,  and  body  and  mind  pray  for  rest. 
The  cliief  attraction  of  heaven  is  its  promised  rest. 

How  can  the  curse  of  labor  be  escaped?  Not  by 
abolishing  labor.  The  most  miserable  beings  in  the 
world  are  those  who  have  no  useful  and  steady  employ- 
ment. They  lose  their  health  for  the  want  of  regular 
exercise,  or  from  dissipation  and  excesses  into  which 
they  plunge  to  find  relief  from  the  monotony  and  weari- 
ness of  an  idle  life.  The  mind  becomes  weak,  the  pur- 
pose aimless,  the  thoughts  confused,  and  all  the  faculties 
of  mind  and  body  become  so  relaxed  and  weak  that  a 
grasshopper  is  a  burden.  It  requires  then  more  effort 
to  step  into  a  carriage  than  it  would  for  a  person  in 
robust  health  to  w-alk  a  mile.  So  essential  is  physical 
labor  in  some  form  to  health  and  happiness,  that  when 
men  and  women  are  not  compelled  by  necessity  to 
engage  in  useful  labor  they  will  seek  exercise  in  sports, 
in  travel,  in  hunting  and  fishing,  in  playing  ball  or  tennis, 
or  in  other  ways  which  they  tax  their  ingenuity  to  invent. 
The  history  of  the  world  shows  that  no  human  being  can 
be  happy  without  labor  in  some  form,  whether  it  is  from 
the  necessity  to  gain  a  subsistence,  or  an  effort  to  escape 
from  monotony  and  find  pleasure.  Action  is  a  law  of 
life  and  the  essential  means  of  happiness.  Idleness  is  a 
curse  from  which  every  one  seeks  to  escape. 

Useful  labor  is  more  conducive  to  happiness  than  that 


nOlV  TO  GET  THE  MOST  GOOD  OUT  OF  LABOR.  349 

which  is  sought  merely  to  escape  from  ennui  or  in  the 
pursuit  of  pleasure.  To  carry  stones  from  one  pile  to 
another  and  then  carry  them  back  again  would  weary 
one  more  than  to  build  them  into  a  useful  wall.  To 
water  a  garden  and  see  the  freshness  and  beauty  of  the 
growing  plants  would  give  one  more  pleasure  than  to 
draw  water  from  a  well  and  povu"  it  back  again.  Exer- 
cise for  the  sake  of  exercise,  without  the  stimulus  of 
some  delight  and  the  reward  of  something  accomplished, 
is  dreary  work.  It  is  better  than  inertness,  but  it  lacks 
the  present  pleasure,  which  is  a  great  stimulus  to  action. 
The  pleasure  which  labor  gains  from  the  enjoyment  of 
some  present  or  future  good,  however,  only  in  part  re- 
lieves the  burden.  The  pleasure  is  not  so  much  in  the 
labor  as  in  the  reward  we  hoj^e  to  gain.  Most  persons 
would  prefer  the  reward  without  the  labor. 

But  the  way  to  take  the  whole  curse  out  of  labor  and 
to  make  it  an  unmixed  blessing,  is  to  perform  it  from 
love  to  the  Lord  and  man.  We  must  put  a  spiritual  and 
heavenly  love  into  it.  The  desire  to  do  good  to  others, 
to  be  useful  to  them  and  to  contribute  to  their  comfort 
and  happiness,  must  be  the  primary  and  central  motive 
of  our  action.  This  does  not  mean  that  we  are  to  have 
no  regard  for  ourselves,  and  are  not  to  receive  a  just 
compensation  for  our  work,  but  it  does  mean  that  the 
supreme  and  governing  motive  and  aim  that  enters  into 
all  our  employments  must  be  the  desire  of  being  useful  to 
others  ;  and  they  must  be  so  conducted,  as  far  as  possible, 
that  there  will  be  use  in  the  performance  of  them  as  well 
as  in  their  results.  Let  us  look  at  some  of  the  common 
and  useful  employments  as  illustrations  of  this  principle. 

30 


350      PROGRESS  I.Y  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


Take  agricultural  pursuits  of  every  kind  as  an  ex- 
ample. The  farmer  can  till  his  ground  and  raise  his 
crops  from  love  to  the  Lord  and  the  neighbor.  He  can 
plough  and  reap  and  gather  his  harvests  with  the  distinct 
purpose  of  co-operating  with  the  Lord  in  carrying  His 
purposes  of  love  to  man  into  effect.  The  Lord  has  so 
constituted  man's  material  body  that  it  must  be  con- 
stantly supplied  with  food,  and  He  has  provided  the 
means  of  supplying  it.  He  has  created  ground  com- 
posed of  elements  suited  to  this  purpose  ;  He  has  pro- 
vided the  seed,  and  the  sun  to  quicken  it  into  growth 
with  its  heat  and  light  ;  He  sends  the  rain  to  dissolve 
these  material  substances  and  present  them  in  a  proper 
form  to  feed  the  hungry  plant  and  quench  its  thirst.  He 
causes  it  to  grow,  "  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that 
the  full  corn  in  the  car."  But  He  needs  the  co-opera- 
tion of  man  to  prepare  the  ground,  to  plant  the  seed, 
to  cultivate  the  soil,  to  gather  the  harvest  and  prepare  it 
for  the  market. 

Suppose  the  farmer,  while  he  is  engaged  in  his  work, 
keeps  this  fact  in  his  mind.  The  Lord  has  honored  me,  he 
says,  by  taking  me  into  His  counsels,  by  permitting  me 
to  assist  Him  in  carrying  His  purposes  of  love  into  effect. 
Would  not  this  elevate  his  labor  from  the  exercise  of  mere 
animal  strength,  like  that  of  the  horse  and  the  ox,  to  a 
spiritual  and  human  plane  of  life  and  make  it  honorable  ? 
He  is  co-operating  with  the  King  of  kings  and  Lord 
of  lords,  in  building  up  His  kingdom  on  the  earth,  and 
forming  His  heaven  in  the  spiritual  world.  Can  you  call 
the  labor  of  this  use  a  curse? 

While  the  farmer  sees  his  corn  and  wheat  and  fruit 


HOIV  TO  GET  THE  MOST  GOOD  OUT  OF  LABOR.  351 


growing  in  the  sunshine  and  the  rain  which  the  Lord 
sends,  suppose  he  thinks  of  the  use  to  his  fellow-men 
which  this  food  will  render.  How  much  hunger  it  will 
appease  !  How  much  physical  strength  it  will  give  to  men 
and  women  to  render  a  service  to  the  Lord  in  some  other 
form  !  It  will  satisfy  the  keen  appetites  of  the  children, 
whose  cheeks  will  grow  rosy  and  whose  limbs  will  grow 
strong  with  the  nourishment  which  he  has  been  an  essen- 
tial factor  in  providing.  Would  not  his  own  heart  grow 
warm  with  this  love  of  the  neighbor?  Would  not  his 
brown  face  grow  bright  with  the  thought  that  the  currents 
of  the  Lord's  love  had  flowed  through  his  heart,  softening, 
enlarging,  and  enriching  it,  and  that  he  had  been  an  instru- 
ment in  the  Lord's  hands  of  distributing  His  bounty  to 
men,  women,  and  children  ?  Is  such  a  position  mean, 
degrading  ?  Is  such  labor  a  curse  ?  If  it  is  a  curse  for 
man  to  render  this  service,  must  it  not  be  a  curse  for  the 
Lord  to  do  His  part  of  the  work  ?  If  it  is  love,  mercy, 
grace,  and  kindness  in  the  Lord  to  provide  food  to  supply 
human  wants,  does  not  man  partake  of  the  same  nature 
by  freely  co-operating  with  Him  ? 

As  another  example,  take  mechanical  employments  of 
all  kinds.  What  does  the  mechanic  do  ?  He  takes  the 
woods  and  metals  and  earths,  which  the  Lord  has  created 
for  human  use,  and  builds  houses  to  give  shelter  from 
cold  and  storm,  and  to  be  a  home  for  infancy  and  child- 
hood, for  the  culture  of  domestic  affections,  and  to  be  the 
theatre  of  quiet  and  exquisite  joys.  He  constructs  im- 
plements for  his  neighbor  to  use  in  cultivating  the  ground  ; 
he  weaves  his  cloth  and  makes  his  garments.  He  con- 
structs engines  to  carry  men  and  the  products  of  their 


352      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOWLEDGE. 


labor  over  land  and  sea  and  bring  the  wealth  of  all  climes 
to  every  door.  If  the  miner  in  the  dark  chambers  of  the 
earth,  the  smith  and  tailor  and  shoemaker  in  their  shops, 
the  merchant  in  his  store,  the  sailor  on  the  sea,  and  the 
cook  in  the  kitchen,  could  know  and  acknowledge  the 
grand  truth  that  they  are  helping  the  Lord  to  carry  out 
His  purposes  of  love  and  mercy  and  tender  regard  for 
men,  would  it  not  lighten  their  labor  and  make  it  a  joy 
rather  than  a  task  ?  They  are  doing  a  work  which  the 
Lord  cannot  do  directly  with  His  own  hands.  He  can 
create  the  wood  and  the  iron,  but  He  cannot  build  the 
house  and  construct  the  engine.  He  can  create  the  corn, 
but  He  cannot  grind  it  and  make  it  into  bread.  He  can 
cause  the  flax  and  cotton  to  grow  and  the  silkworm  to  spin 
its  fine  thread,  but  He  needs  our  help  to  prepare  the  fibre, 
to  weave  the  cloth,  and  to  make  the  garment.  He  has 
given  to  man  the  ability  to  do  this  work,  and  made  it  the 
means  of  the  development  of  his  intellectual  and  spiritual 
faculties,  and  of  filling  his  heart  with  delight.  He  has 
placed  us  in  the  midst  of  these  manifold  uses,  given  us 
the  ability  to  perform  them,  and  rewards  us  in  doing 
them,  with  health  and  strength  and  increase  of  capacity  to 
receive  more  life  from  Him,  and  crowns  us  with  honor  for 
doing  them.  Here,  as  in  tlie  work  of  the  husbandman, 
every  one  can  gain  the  comfort  and  receive  the  delight 
of  knowing  that  he  is  rendering  a  service  to  the  Lord  and 
to  man.  He  is  clothing  the  naked,  he  is  feeding  the 
hungry,  he  is  healing  the  sick,  he  is  carrying  the  weary 
on  his  journey,  he  is  providing  homes  for  the  homeless, 
he  is  instructing  the  ignorant,  he  is  contributing  to  the 
common  good  according  to  the  kind  and  measure  of  his 


HOIV  TO  GET  THE  MOST  GOOD  OUT  OE  LABOR.  353 


use,  and  the  knowledge  of  this  fact  will  strengthen  his 
arm  and  encourage  his  heart. 

Take  the  employments  of  woman  as  another  illustration 
of  the  principle.  Many  of  her  employments  are  monoto- 
nous and  in  themselves  contain  but  little  to  awaken  inter- 
est or  call  forth  intelligence.  Her  work  is  perpetually 
recurring.  When  one  meal  has  been  prepared  and  the 
wants  of  nature  supplied,  another  must  be  provided. 
The  cook  and  the  chamber-maid  and  the  mistress  go  the 
daily  round  with  little  variety  and  apparently  with  liltle 
permanent  result.  Wants  perpetually  recur  and  must  be 
perpetually  supplied.  What  does  the  labor  amount  to  if 
it  is  performed  from  necessity  ?  What  permanent  reward 
is  gained  for  the  care,  the  weariness,  the  anxiety,  the  fre- 
quent failure,  if  there  is  no  purpose  but  simply  to  do 
what  necessity  compels  ?  I  am  not  surprised  that  women 
grow  weary  and  feel  life  to  be  a  burden.  Many  of  them 
are  loyal  to  duty  and  natural  affections.  But  what  help 
do  they  get  from  their  religion  ?  Do  Christian  women 
bear  these  burdens  more  cheerfully  and  find  more  comfort 
and  delight  in  their  work  than  others  ?  On  the  contrary, 
are  they  not  taught  that  their  labor  and  care  and  sorrow 
are  a  curse  which  they  inherit  from  the  first  mother  ? 

Now,  suppose  they  grew  up  under  the  influence  of  the 
truth  that  all  their  employments  and  relations  are  forms 
of  use  and  are  means  of  calling  spiritual  affections,  love 
to  the  Lord  and  man,  into  exercise.  Suppose  the  mother 
and  the  nurse  and  the  cook  and  the  teacher  and  the 
seamstress  thought  and  felt  that  they  are  working  for  the 
Lord  and  co-operating  with  Him  in  accomplishing  His 
purpose  in  creating  the  human  race,  would  not  that 
X  30* 


354      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


thought  fill  their  hearts  with  a  peaceful  and  heavenly 
pleasure  ?  Would  not  they  see  that  every  word  spoken, 
every  meal  prepared,  every  garment  made,  every  pro- 
vision for  health  and  comfort  and  the  development  of  the 
physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  nature  has  a  permanent 
value  ?  The  deed  is  ended,  but  the  effect  remains.  The 
burden  of  life  is  lifted,  and  the  sense  that  some  perma- 
nent good  is  accomplished  fills  the  heart  with  satisfaction 
and  delight.  Working  so,  we  are  not  working  merely 
for  to-day.  We  are  laying  up  treasure  in  our  own  minds 
which  neither  moth  nor  rust  can  corrupt.  We  are  doing 
a  permanent  good  to  every  one  to  whom  we  minister  in 
these  natural  things.  If  we  put  love  to  the  Lord  and 
man  into  our  work,  if  it  be  no  more  than  giving  a  cup  of 
cold  water  to  one  of  the  little  ones,  we  cannot  lose  our 
reward.  The  heavenly  motive  glorifies  the  work.  The 
heavenly  worker  glorifies  the  Lord.  ' '  Herein  is  my 
Father  glorified,  that  ye  bear  much  fruit."  The  Lord 
glorifies  us.  We  are  working  for  the  Lord  and  with  the 
Lord.  We  are  doing  His  work  here  in  this  world  ;  but 
it  is  the  same  in  final  purpose  that  He  and  the  angels  are 
doing  in  the  spiritual  world.  We  are  working  for 
humanity  and  placing  ourselves  in  such  relations  to  the 
Lord  and  the  angels  and  all  good  men  that  they  can  work 
for  us.  There  is  unity  of  purpose  and  unity  of  interest 
which  draws  us  together,  which  ennobles  the  most  trivial 
deed,  and  sanctifies  the  heart. 

All  the  principles  and  doctrines  and  the  whole  spirit 
of  the  New  Church  tend  to  this  result.  It  is  a  maxim 
of  the  New  Church,  that  all  religion  has  relation  to  life, 
and  that  the  life  of  religion  consists  in  doing  good.  We 


HO IV  TO  GET  THE  MOST  GOOD  OUT  OF  LABOR.  355 

do  not  mean  by  this  that  we  are  rewarded  for  our  good 
works  with  heavenly  joys,  as  men  receive  money  for 
their  work.  We  are  not  rewarded  in  an  arbitrary  way 
for  what  we  do,  but  the  reward  is  in  the  doing.  We 
are  rewarded  in  the  heavenly  affections  called  into  play, 
in  the  heavenly  characters  formed,  in  cherishing  the 
unselfish  affections,  in  thinking  truly  and  acting  kindly. 
The  daily  duties  which  we  perform  with  our  hands  minis- 
ter to  our  spiritual  and  eternal  good,  because  we  put  a 
spiritual  and  heavenly  motive  into  them. 

Finally,  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  give  us  a 
true  conception  of  the  nature  of  this  world  and  of  the 
purpose  of  the  Lord  in  regard  to  it.  It  is  a  grand  and 
beautiful  world,  and  perfectly  adapted  to  man's  nature  in 
the  first  stages  of  his  existence.  It  is  our  home  for  a 
few  years,  and  our  Heavenly  Father  has  furnished  it  in 
the  greatest  variety  and  abundance  with  all  the  means 
necessary  for  our  support,  our  instruction,  our  comfort, 
and  our  delight.  How  lovely  it  is  !  How  varied  and 
beautiful  its  forms  !  How  glorious  the  colors  in  which  He 
has  painted  it  !  How  delicious  the  substances  He  has 
provided  for  the  nourishment  of  the  body  !  How  nicely 
adapted  its  forms  and  forces  to  call  into  play  the  latent 
possibilities  of  our  affections,  our  intellectual  and  spiritual 
faculties,  and  all  those  powers  and  qualities  which  will  fit 
us  for  our  eternal  home  in  the  spiritual  world  ! 

You  know  how  much  is  said  against  the  world.  It  is 
generally  regarded  in  the  churches,  at  least  by  the  doc- 
trine of  the  churches,  as  hostile  to  man.  Religious 
devotees  flee  from  the  world,  or  try  to  do  it,  by  shutting 
themselves  up  in  cloisters,  by  denying  themselves  its 


356      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


pleasures,  and  despising  its  beauty  and  manifold  uses. 
But  this  is  a  great  mistake.  The  Lord  probably  knew 
what  He  was  about  when  He  made  the  world.  It  is  not 
the  world  that  is  wrong.  It  was  created  to  supply  our 
needs  and  minister  to  our  delights.  It  is  not  the  love  of 
the  world  that  is  wrong.  The  Lord  made  it  to  be  loved, 
and  He  gave  man  the  capacity  for  loving  it.  It  was 
necessary  that  it  should  be  lovely  and  charming  to  attract 
our  attention  and  call  our  natural  and  spiritual  faculties 
into  play  by  its  delights.  It  is  not  the  love  itself  of  the 
world  that  is  wrong  and  deadly  in  its  influence,  it  is  the 
supreme  love  of  it.  It  is  when  the  world  becomes  the 
end,  instead  of  the  means  of  gaining  a  higher  end  ;  it  is 
when  we  make  it  our  god  and  the  object  of  our  worship 
that  it  becomes  a  deadly  curse. 

This  distinction  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church 
clearly  teach.  While  they  show  the  danger  and  the 
fatal  consequences  of  making  the  world  and  its  posses- 
sions and  delights  the  object  of  supreme  affection,  more 
clearly  and  forcibly  than  any  other  doctrines  have  ever 
done,  at  the  same  time  they  teach  us  that  its  good  ought 
not  to  be  despised.  The  Lord  created  the  world  for  our 
instruction  and  delight,  and  it  is  as  ungrateful  and  wicked 
to  despise  and  reject  His  natural,  as  it  is  His  spiritual, 
blessings.  Innocent  amusements  and  social  pleasures 
and  natural  delights  are  good  and  useful  in  their  place  ; 
the  enjoyments  of  the  earth  are  as  harmless  and  useful 
in  their  place  as  the  enjoyments  of  heaven.  We  can  eat 
and  drink  to  the  glory  of  God. 

From  this  point  of  view,  and  in  tlie  light  of  these  prin- 
ciples, this  world  has  a  new  meaning,  a  new  use,  and  a 


//6»AK  TO  (JET  THE  MOST  GOOD  OUT  OF  LABOR.  357 

new  glory.  Everything  which  ministers  to  our  comfort, 
instruction,  and  deHght  is  a  form  and  token  of  the 
Divine  love.  The  power  to  see  the  beauty  and  enjoy 
the  good  which  the  Lord  provides  is  also  a  provision 
of  the  Lord's  love.  In  the  light  of  this  truth  we  can 
appreciate  His  blessings  more  fully.  It  gives  a  keener 
relish  to  our  food  ;  it  fills  our  social  and  domestic  life 
with  a  more  interior  delight.  It  gives  a  new  beauty  to 
the  flowers,  and  a  new  glory  to  the  heavens.  We  are 
the  children  of  our  Heavenly  Father.  It  is  His  love 
which  creates,  His  wisdom  which  forms,  His  hand  which 
brings  us  these  tokens  of  His  love.  His  loving  thought 
and  tender  care  which  provide  them  for  us  to-day. 
These  doctrines  bring  the  Lord  near  to  us  ;  they  tend  to 
call  forth  our  affections  and  our  gratitude,  our  trust  and 
confidence,  and  a  sense  of  security  from  harm  while  we 
remain  under  the  .shadow  of  His  wings.  They  show  us 
the  deadly  evils  of  the  supreme  love  of  self  and  the 
world  ;  they  give  us  power  to  resist  temptation,  patience 
and  hope  in  trial  and  suffering  ;  they  make  our  labor  an 
honor  and  a  delight  ;  they  give  us  a  just  estimate  of  the 
value  of  this  life  and  a  foretaste  of  the  life  to  come. 

Suppose,  when  you  go  to  your  work  to-morrow,  you 
say  to  yourself  ' '  I  am  going  on  an  errand  for  the  Lord  ; 
I  am  going  to  do  a  work  which  He  has  commissioned  me 
to  perform  ;  I  am  going  to  render  a  service  to  one  of  His 
children  ;  I  am  His  agent ;  I  am  employed  in  His  office  ; 
I  am  commissioned  to  assist  Him  in  His  work."  Would 
not  such  thoughts  and  the  consciousness  of  such  a  pur- 
pose fill  your  heart  with  delight?  It  is  of  but  little 
consequence  what  your  mission  is,  so  it  is  a  useful  one. 


358      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


Would  not  the  thought  throw  a  splendor  over  the  day  ? 
Would  it  not  give  you  a  supreme  moti\e  to  do  your 
work  well  ?  Would  you  not  be  happy  in  it  ?  Would 
you  not  feel  it  an  honor  and  a  joy  to  help  the  Lord  and 
to  add  to  the  comfort  or  alleviate  the  suffering  or  minister 
to  the  wants  of  a  human  being  ?  Try  it,  and  you  will  see 
and  know  by  blessed  experience  how  such  a  purpose 
will  lighten  the  burden  of  labor,  how  it  will  raise  it  from 
a  drudgery  and  a  curse  to  the  high  level  of  an  honor- 
able ser\'ice  for  the  Lord  and  the  neighbor.  And  in 
doing  it  you  will  find  that  the  Lord  is  working  for  you, 
and  rewarding  you  with  enlarged  affections,  with  keener 
perceptions  of  His  goodness  and  mercy.  You  will  find 
all  your  spiritual  faculties  expanding  and  growing  into 
the  beauty  and  harmony  of  the  Divine  order,  because 
you  are  doing  a  heavenly  work  ;  for  every  work  is  meas- 
ured by  the  lo\  e  we  put  into  it. 

All  the  doctrines  and  jirinciples  of  the  New  Church 
tend  to  raise  us  up  to  this  high  plane  of  action.  They 
teach  us  the  principles  of  this  life  of  heaven  upon  the 
earth,  and  they  show  us  how  to  put  them  in  practice. 
They  reveal  the  Lord  as  a  Being  who  loves  us  with  an 
infinitive  love,  and  who  has  no  thought  or  purpose  with 
regard  to  us  but  to  save  us  from  sin  and  sorrow  and  bestow 
upon  us  eternal  life.  A  knowledge  of  these  doctrines 
and  a  life  according  to  ther.i  will  help  every  one  in  every 
condition  to  get  a  higher  good  out  of  daily  duty,  and 
will  prepare  him  for  greater  happiness  through  eternity. 


PEACE  IN  THE  LORD. 


''Peace  I  leave  with  you,  my  peace  I  give  unto  you :  not  as  the 
world  giveth,  give  I  unto  you." — John  xiv.  27. 

\  1  7  HAT  is  this  peace  which  the  Lord  promised  to  the 


disciples  in  His  farewell  words, — promised  as  His 
most  precious  gift,  and  as  the  fruit  of  His  finished  labors  ? 
We  have  some  knowledge  of  peace  on  the  material  and 
natural  planes  of  life.  Natural  forces  are  at  peace 
though  these  bright  worlds  are  moving  with  inconceiva- 
ble velocity,  because  each  one  keeps  in  its  orbit  and  flies 
on  its  shining  way  in  the  path  ordained  for  it.  Natural 
forces  give  us  most  beautiful  and  impressive  types  of 
peace  when  they  act  in  harmony  :  a  river  gliding  along 
in  a  smooth  and  silent  current  ;  the  wind  bending  the 
waving  corn,  playing  with  the  dancing  leaves,  rippling 
the  smooth  surface  of  the  lake  which  sleeps  among  the 
hills,  and  bringing  coolness  and  refreshment  on  its  wings. 
A  spring  morning  when  new  life  is  beating  in  the  heart 
of  nature  and  quickening  every  vegetable  form  into  new 
activity  is  a  most  impressive  exhibition  of  immense  forces 
moving  in  orderly  ways  to  accomplish  the  Divine  pur- 
poses. How  silently  the  tender  leaf  emerges  from  the 
coarse  bud  !  How  gently  the  blossom  opens  its  prison 
doors  and  smiles  in  beauty  upon  the  world  !  There  is  no 
noise,  no  confusion,  no  struggle  with  opposing  obstacles. 
The  murmuring  winds,  the  vernal  warmth,  the  opening 


359 


36o      PROGRESS  IX  SPIRITUAL  KXOIVLEDGE. 


flower,  tlie  growing  harvests,  with  united  voice  say, 
Peace.  Invisible  influences  melt  into  the  soul  with  the 
benedictions  of  peace.  Such  is  the  voice  of  the  Lord  in 
His  works  ;  such  are  the  hints  of  the  nature  of  peace, 
which  He  gives  us  on  the  lowest  plane  of  the  creation, 
and  from  them  we  may  get  a  suggestion  of  the  origin  and 
nature  and  blessedness  of  the  peace  which  He  desires  to 
gi\  e  us  in  the  higher  realms  of  the  spirit.  Let  us  look 
up  then  from  nature  to  the  Lord's  direct  teachings  con- 
cerning the  origin  and  nature  of  His  peace.  "  My 
peace  I  give  unto  you." 

"By  peace,"  says  Swedenborg,  "are  signified  all  the 
things  in  the  complex  which  are  from  the  Lord,  and 
thence  all  the  things  of  heaven  and  the  church,  and  the 
blessedness  of  life  in  them.  These  are  of  jieace  in  the 
highest  or  inmost  sense.  It  follows  from  this,  tliat 
charity,  spiritual  security,  and  internal  rest  are  peace  ;  for, 
when  a  man  is  in  the  Lord,  he  is  in  peace  with  his  neigh- 
bor, whicii  is  charity  ;  in  protection  against  the  hells, 
which  is  s])iritual  security  ;  and  when  he  is  in  peace  with 
his  neighbor,  and  in  protection  against  the  hells,  he  is  in 
internal  rest  from  evils  and  falsities."  ("Apocalypse 
Revealed,"  No.  306.) 

Let  us  consider  this  instruction  in  regard  to  the  essen- 
tial nature  of  peace. 

First,  observe  what  is  said  of  its  origin.  It  is  from  the 
Lord.  All  its  constituents  in  their  aggregate  are  from 
Him.  What  are  we  to  understand  by  their  being  from  the 
Lord  ?  All  life,  all  power,  all  capacity  to  love,  to  know, 
to  act,  to  sufl'er,  are  from  Him,  but  the  order  may  be  dis- 
turbed, their  nature  changed,  in  coming  to  us.  Peace 


PEACE  IN  THE  LORD. 


results  when  these  constituents  of  life  are  received  by  us 
in  the  same  form,  order,  and  harmonies  in  which  they 
exist  in  the  Lord.  Love  and  trutli  are  united  and  become 
one  in  act.  They  go  forth  in  the  form  of  use  to  others. 
Truth  does  not  remain  a  cold  and  separate  thing  in  the 
understanding  ;  love  is  not  an  aimless  and  helpless  im- 
pulse in  the  will.  They  become  one.  Each  gives  itself 
to  the  other,  and  hand  in  hand  they  go  forth  to  serve  and 
bless.  They  move  in  the  paths  of  the  Divine  order,  and 
in  the  harmonies  of  the  Divine  life.  There  is  no  struggle 
with  obstacles,  no  conflict  with  hostile  forces,  no  resistance, 
no  doubt,  no  fear  ;  there  are  no  clashing  and  distracting 
influences.  All  the  faculties  are  lifted  up  and  borne  on- 
ward to  attainment  by  the  gentle  attractions  of  the 
Divine  love.  The  will  and  the  understanding  are  in  the 
Lord, — that  is,  they  are  in  the  sphere  of  His  love,  they 
are  in  the  harmonies  of  His  order.  The  will  is  vivified 
with  His  life,  the  understanding  is  illuminated  with  His 
truth,  and  all  the  faculties  move  in  accord  with  His 
creating  and  sustaining  energies.  This  is  the  condition 
into  which  the  Lord  created  us,  and  these  are  the 
relations  which  the  Lord  desires  us  to  sustain  to  Him. 
In  such  a  state  of  the  soul  there  can  be  no  jar,  no  discord 
in  the  harmony  of  life,  no  failure  in  the  attainment  of  the 
highest  good.  "  In  me,"  says  our  Lord,  "  ye  shall  have 
peace."  Such  is  peace  in  its  aggregate.  Let  us  con- 
sider its  three  essential  constituents. 

The  first  is  charity  ;  ' '  for,  when  a  man  is  in  the  Lord, 
he  is  in  peace  with  his  neighbor,  which  is  charity." 
Charity  consists  essentially  in  loving  the  neighbor  as  our- 
selves.   It  consists  in  putting  his  interests  on  a  level  with 
Q  31 


362      FJ^OGA'ESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KA'OWLEDGE. 


our  own,  and  in  doing  to  others  and  thinking  of  others 
and  in  regarding  them  in  all  respects  as  we  desire  to  ha\  e 
them  think  of  us  and  do  to  us.  When  we  are  in  this 
state  we  are  at  peace  in  ourselves  with  others.  They 
may  think  evil  of  us,  but  we  do  not  think  evil  of  them  ; 
they  may  try  to  injure  us,  but  we  do  not  try  to  injure 
them  ;  they  may  hate  us,  but  we  do  not  hate  them.  We 
do  not  make  others  an  excuse  or  an  example  for  our- 
selves. Our  minds  are  serene  whatever  storms  of  passion 
may  be  raging  in  the  minds  of  others.  The  Lord  gives 
us  His  peace  when  we  abide  in  His  love. 

Suppose  every  member  of  a  family  to  act  from  this 
principle  of  charity.  Would  there  not  be  peace  in  that 
house?  Each  member  of  the  family  is  looking  to  the 
good  of  all.  Each  one  is  trying  to  contribute  to  the 
comfort  and  happiness  of  all.  Consequently  all  the 
members  are  serving  each  one.  This  is  the  heavenly 
order.  To  every  family  living  in  this  order  the  Lord 
comes  with  the  Divine  benediction,  "Peace  be  to  this 
house." 

When  the  members  of  social,  civil,  or  religious  societies 
think  and  speak  and  act  from  this  principle  of  heavenly 
life  the  kingdom  of  God  will  come  to  them.  They  will 
be  societies  of  heaven  upon  the  earth.  Suppose  every 
member  of  the  various  societies  that  are  founded  for 
social,  civil,  industrial,  or  religious  purposes  should  regard 
every  other  member  as  he  or  she  wished  to  be  regarded  ; 
suppose  we  all  thought  of  others  with  the  same  kindness, 
consideration,  and  good  feeling  with  which  we  desire 
others  to  think  of  us  ;  suppose  we  all  spoke  of  others 
with  the  same  tenderness,  the  same  scrupulous  regard 


PEACE  IN  THE  LORD. 


363 


for  the  truth,  the  same  desire  to  do  them  no  harm,  the 
same  desire  to  help  them,  with  vvhicii  we  wish  others 
to  speak  of  us  ;  suppose  we  were  in  the  constant  effort, 
according  to  our  abihty,  to  give  strength  to  the  weak, 
courage  to  the  timid,  Hght  to  the  ignorant,  and  in  all 
kind,  wise,  gentle,  and  useful  ways  to  help  the  needy,  as 
we,  who  are  all  needy  in  some  respects,  desire  to  be 
helped  by  others,  would  not  such  societies  be  heaven 
upon  the  earth?  The  Lord's  peace  would  reign  in 
them.  There  would  be  union,  harmony,  activity,  strength, 
help  for  each  and  all,  peace  and  happiness  beyond  our 
present  conception  of  the  possibility  of  attainment  in  this 
life. 

Another  constituent  of  the  peace  which  the  Lord  gives 
us  is  "spiritual  security"  from  the  assaults  of  all  the 
influences  which  tend  to  disturb  the  harmony  of  life. 
This  is  an  essential  factor  of  perfect  peace.  However 
deep  and  full  and  exquisite  might  be  our  peace,  it  would 
still  be  imperfect  if  its  harmonies  could  be  disturbed  by 
any  corruption  from  evil  desires  or  assaults  from  false 
principles.  The  Lord  gives  us  His  peace  according  to 
the  immutable  laws  of  His  Divine  order.  The  soul 
stands  in  them,  is  lifted  up  by  their  attractions.  It  is 
borne  onward  in  the  currents  of  the  Divine  forces.  They 
environ  it  on  all  sides  ;  they  flow  into  it  from  within  ; 
they  encompass  it  from  without.  It  takes  refuge  under 
the  wings  of  the  Almighty.  There  is  no  possibility  that 
any  disturbing  influence  can  gain  access  to  it.  The  love 
of  self  and  the  world  has  become  quiescent,  and  we  yield 
ourselves  without  any  reservation  or  reluctance  to  be  led 
by  infinite  love  and  guided  by  infinite  wisdom.  The 


364      PROGRESS  ly  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


promise  is  fulfilled  :  ' '  Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect 
peace,  whose  mind  is  stayed  on  thee,  because  he  trustelh 
in  thee." 

When  the  Lord  gives  His  peace  unto  us  we  come  into 
the  clear  and  steadfast  light  of  Divine  truth.  The  dark- 
ness of  error  cannot  cast  a  shadow  over  us.  Darkness 
cannot  approach  light.  Darkness  comes  b)'  the  absence 
of  light.  Fill  a  room  with  light  and  you  cannot  get  any 
darkness  into  it.  Illuminate  a  mind  with  genuine  truth 
and  error  can  find  no  place  in  it,  a  falsity  cannot  approach 
it.  Cold  cannot  exist  in  the  presence  of  heat.  The 
most  delicate  plant  is  perfectly  secure  against  frost  in  a 
warm  and  genial  atmosphere.  So  the  love  of  self  and 
the  world  cannot  approach  the  love  of  the  Lord  and  the 
neighbor.  They  are  opposites  and  cannot  dwell  together. 
When  the  heart  is  full  of  hea\  enly  love  there  is  no  room 
for  hatred.  The  conditions  on  which  we  gain  heavenly 
peace  secure  us  against  its  disturbance  and  loss.  The 
reason  why  our  peace  is  so  often  disturbed  and  destroyed 
now  is  because  we  live  so  much  in  the  world,  under  the 
influence  of  selfish  and  worldly  desires.  We  have  not 
gained  the  jjeace  which  the  Lord  gives  to  all  who  will 
receive  it.  We  ha\  e  not  yet  gained  the  heavenly  man- 
sions ;  we  are  in  the  border-land  between  heaven  and 
hell,  and  we  are  the  subjects  of  contention  between  the 
heavenly  and  the  infernal  hosts.  We  are  troubled,  dis- 
tracted, drawn  in  opposite  directions.  But  the  Lord 
bids  us  be  of  good  cheer,  because  He  has  overcome  the 
world  and  has  gained  a  position  in  which  He  can  help 
us  to  overcome  it.  When  by  His  Divine  aid  this  is 
accomplished,  we  shall  be  where  no  falsity  can  find  us 


PEACE  IN  THE  LORD. 


365 


and  no  evil  disturb  the  serenity  of  our  peace.  We  shall 
gain  "spiritual  security." 

The  third  essential  of  peace  is  ' '  internal  rest. ' '  While 
we  Hve  in  the  world, — that  is,  in  the  love  of  it  and  in  the 
thought  of  it, — we  shall  look  to  it  for  peace.  This  is  the 
condition  of  the  mass  of  humanity,  and  we  are  all  more 
or  less  in  this  state.  We  are  looking  without  for  peace, 
to  our  external  and  natural  relations  for  rest.  If  we  can 
gain  sufficient  wealth  to  satisfy  our  \\ants  and  gratify  our 
desires,  then  we  vainly  think  we  shall  be  contented  and 
happy.  But  we  forget  that  our  wants  increase  with  our 
means  of  supplying  them.  Our  desires  grow  faster  than 
our  means  of  gratifying  them.  Then,  too,  there  is  no 
security  against  the  loss  of  any  possession.  It  has  be- 
come a  maxim  of  worldly  wisdom  that  it  is  more  difficult 
to  keep  wealth  than  it  is  to  gain  it.  The  consequence  is 
that  those  who  possess  it  and  set  their  hearts  upon  it  must 
be  disturbed  with  anxieties  and  fears  for  its  safety.  Those 
who  look  for  happiness  in  domestic  and  social  relations 
and  who  are  the  most  delightfully  situated  in  these  re- 
spects have  no  security  for  the  permanence  of  these 
possessions.  The  relation  of  husband  and  wife,  on  which 
more  than  on  any  other  depends  our  happiness  in  this 
world,  is  liable  at  any  time  to  be  severed  by  death. 
Parents  and  children  must  part  ;  the  most  intimate  friends 
must  separate  ;  families  are  broken  up  and  dispersed  ; 
homes  are  forsaken  and  become  desolate.  There  is  no 
worldly,  no  natural  possession  that  is  permanent.  There 
is  no  place  on  the  earth  where  we  can  lay  up  a  treasure 
of  any  kind  in  which  it  will  be  secure.  There  is  no 
natural  relation  or  possession,  no  knowledge,  no  affection, 

31* 


366      FJ^OGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


no  honor,  no  power,  no  personal  tie  that  is  safe  from 
harm  and  loss.  Consequently  every  state  and  condition 
of  the  natural  mind  is  subject  to  doubts  and  fears  and 
anxieties  and  disappointments.  "  In  the  world  ye  shall 
have  tribulation."  This  is  a  truth  to  which  there  are 
and  can  be  no  exceptions.  But  by  the  world  is  not 
meant  the  material  world,  but  the  world  of  the  natural 
mind,  the  world  of  thought  and  affection  that  relates  to 
this  life  alone.  So  long  as  we  limit  our  thoughts  and 
affections  to  a  purely  natural  life,  and  in  the  degree  that 
we  do  so,  our  hearts  will  be  troubled  with  fears  and  cares 
and  anxieties.  We  shall  be  subject  to  disappointment 
and  sorrow.  It  lies  in  the  nature  of  things  that  it  should 
be  so.  There  is  nothing  substantial  and  permanent  and 
fully  satisfying  in  a  worldly  life  or  in  worldly  knowledge, 
in  worldly  thoughts  and  possessions  of  any  amount  or 
kind.  They  are  useful  in  their  time  and  place  ;  they  are 
as  the  husk  to  the  corn,  the  chaff  to  the  wheat.  They 
are  instrumental  to  a  permanent  and  substantial  good, 
and  when  they  are  regarded  as  instrumental  means  to 
the  attainment  of  something  better  than  themselves 
they  are  estimated  at  their  true  value  and  do  not  disap- 
point us. 

This  is  a  difficult  lesson  for  us  to  learn.  How  hard, 
almost  impossible,  it  was  for  the  disciples  to  believe  that 
the  Lord  would  be  more  fully  present  with  them,  and  in 
a  position  to  do  more  for  them  after  His  ascension  than 
while  He  was  with  them  in  the  material  body  !  And  yet 
it  was  so.  How  difficult  it  is  for  us  to  believe  that  those 
to  whom  we  are  bound  by  the  most  intimate  and  tender 
tics,  ties  which  can  never  be  severed,  are  nearer  to  us 


PEACE  IN  THE  LORD. 


367 


and  dearer  to  us,  and  we  to  them,  and  can  render  us  a 
more  precious  service  now  that  they  have  awakened  to 
the  spiritual  life  than  when  they  dwelt  with  us  in  the 
world  !  And  yet  it  is  true  beyond  all  possibility  of  mis- 
take. How  difficult  it  is  to  get  out  of  the  world  in  our 
thoughts  and  affections  and  regard  ourselves  as  spiritual 
beings,  as  citizens  of  the  spiritual  world,  and  all  our  per- 
manent possessions  and  relations  to  others  as  spiritual ! 
But  only  in  the  degree  that  we  do  this  shall  we  come 
into  "the  peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  understand- 
ing." 

Internal  rest  is  peace  of  the  soul.  It  is  the  harmony 
and  orderly  activity  of  the  inmost  and  purest  faculties  of 
our  nature.  It  lies  beyond  the  reach  of  all  the  changes 
of  time  and  space.  Its  home  is  in  the  serene  heaven 
above  the  clouds  and  storms,  the  doubts  and  fears,  the 
disappointments  and  sorrows  of  a  natural,  worldly  life. 
Internal  rest  !  Quiet,  peaceful,  trusting,  satisfied  affec- 
tions !  Clear,  distinct,  tranquil  thoughts  !  Secure  from 
every  disturbing  influence  ;  secure  from  harm  and  loss  ; 
every  treasure  of  the  heart  safe  and  assured  ;  no  more 
severed  ties  ;  no  more  partings.  ' '  There  the  wicked  cease 
from  troubling  ;  and  there  the  weary  are  at  rest."  This 
is  what  the  Lord  promises  us. 

But  this  is  not  all,  and  consequently  it  is  not  enough. 
There  is  no  assignable  limit  to  the  Lord's  peace.  It  is 
more  than  rest  ;  it  is  more  than  security  from  any  dis- 
turbing force  ;  it  is  more  than  possession  of  any  present 
attainment  ;  it  is  more  than  home  and  life  with  loved 
ones  ;  it  is  more  than  we  possess  or  can  ask  at  any  as- 
signable point  in  our  progress. 


368      PROGRESS  IN  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


Peace  is  not  a  quiescent,  passive  state.  It  is  a  most 
active  one.  It  is  caused  by  the  inflowing  of  the  Divine 
love  into  the  inmost  affections,  vivifying  them  with  hfe 
and  awaking  them  to  harmonious  and  dehghtful  activi- 
ties. This  love  comes  by  means  of  the  Divine  truth,  the 
truth  of  peace,  which  affects  universally  all  in  heaven, 
and  makes  heaven  to  be  heaven.  For  peace  contains  in 
it  a  confidence  that  the  Lord  governs  all  things  and  pro- 
vides all  things  and  that  He  leads  to  a  good  end.  When 
a  man  is  in  the  faith  of  these  things  he  is  in  peace,  for 
then  he  fears  nothing,  and  has  no  solicitude  about  things 
to  come  to  make  him  unquiet.  A  man  comes  into  this 
state  in  proportion  as  he  comes  iniio  love  to  the  Lord. 
"The  state  of  peace  which  prevails  in  heaven,"  says 
Swedenborg,  "  is  such  as  cannot  be  described  in  any 
words,  neither  can  it  come  into  the  thought  and  percep- 
tion of  man,  so  long  as  he  is  in  the  world,  by  any  idea 
derived  from  the  world  ;  for  it  is  then  above  every  sense. 
Tranquillity  of  mind,  content,  and  gladness  on  account 
of  success  are  respectively  as  nothing,  for  these  affect 
only  externals,  whereas  peace  affects  the  inmosts  of  all 
.  .  .  and  thus  makes  the  mind  of  man  a  heaven." 
("Heavenly  Arcana,"  No.  8455.) 

Such  is  the  peace,  so  sweet  with  inmost  blessedness, 
so  full  of  every  possible  delight  from  tlie  centre  to  the 
circumference  of  our  being,  which  the  Lord  promises  to 
leave  with  us  and  to  give  unto  us.  Such  is  the  peace 
He  offers  to  each  one  of  us  to-day.  Such  is  the  peace 
He  will  gi\  e  unto  us  as  fast  and  in  as  full  measure  as  we 
are  able  to  receive  it.  It  is  indeed  the  result  of  the 
awakened  activities  of  the  deepest  and  purest  affections 


PEACE  IN  THE  LORD. 


369 


of  our  nature  going  forth  to  the  attainment  of  their  end  ; 
it  is  the  glow  and  glory  of  the  highest  intellectual  facul- 
ties, acting  in  harmony  with  our  affections,  conjoined 
with  them,  married  to  them,  and  working  with  them  for 
the  attainment  of  our  highest  good.  It  is  rest  in  action  ; 
it  is  certainty  in  the  attainment  of  the  highest  good  we 
can  conceive  ;  it  is  the  fruition  of  our  highest  hopes  ;  it 
is  possession  without  the  possibility  of  loss.  It  is  more 
than  these  ;  it  is  elevation  into  clearer  light  and  into  a 
finer  and  larger  power  ;  it  is  the  opening  of  the  doors  of 
every  intellectual  faculty  to  be  illuminated  with  the  light 
of  Divine  truth,  and  of  every  affection  to  be  thrilled  with 
the  Divine  love. 


BOOKS  BY  THE  REV.  CHAUNCEY  GILES. 


The  Xature  of  Spirit  and  of  JIttii  as  a  Spiritual  BeittO' 

Eighth  Edition,  Revised.    Pp  232.    Cloth.  50  cents  ■,  paper.  20  cents. 
Oar  Children  in  tlie  Other  Jjife.   I. imp  cloth,  10  cents. 
The  Spiritual   World  and  our   Children  There.  ("The 

Xature  of  Spirit"  and  "  OurChildren  in  the  Other  Life.")  Pp.  250,  Limp 

cloth.  30  cents. 

Heavenly  Blessetlness,    Handsomely  bound,  illuminated  cover.  Pp. 

250    J I  25 

Tlie  Incarnation.  Atonement,  and  yiediation  of  our 
Ijord  Jesus  Christ.    Pp.  Si.    Cloth.  40  cents  ;  boards.  20  cents. 

The  Second  Coming  of  the  Lord:  Its  Causes,  Sia>iSt  ami 
Effects.   Pp.  264.   Cloth,  75  cents. 

Perfect  Prayer:  Iloir  Offered,  Hon-  Anstrered.  Pp  234. 
Cloth,  50  cents. 

T7ie  Forgiveness  of  Sin:  A  Study  of  I,uke  vii.  36-SO.  Pp. 

96.    Red  cloth.  50  cents. 
The  True  and  the  False  Theory  of  Evolution.    Pp.  14S. 

Cloth,  50  cents  ;  paper,  15  cents. 
n'hy  I  am  a  Xeir  Churchman.    Pp.  126.  Cloth,  25  cents;  paper, 

10  cents. 

Consolation.    Pp  iSy.    Dark  green  or  white  cloth,  fine  paper,  gilt  lop, 

75  cents. 

Itoctrimil  Lectures,   22  lectures.   Cloth.  50  cents. 

Itoctrinal  Sermons.    24  sermons.   Cloth.  50  cents. 

Itoctrines  of  the  Xeir  Church:  M'hat  they  Teach  auti 
If  'hat  they  dit  not  Teacli.    20  lectures.    Cluth,  50  cents. 

Sitiritual  \urturc :  its  Jleans,  Jicthods,  and  Impor- 
tance,   y  sermons.    Cloth,  3.=;  cents. 

The  Harden  of  Eden:  It'here  it  is  and  U'hat  it  is.  12 
sermons.    Cloth.  33  cents. 

Siredenborg  tis  a  Scientist.  Philosopher,  Seer,  and  Tlteo- 

logitin.   4  lectures.    Cloth,  25  cents. 
Steps  Totrards  Heaven.   losernious.   Cloth,  35  cents. 

CHILDREN'S  STORIES. 
Tlie  Valley  of  niamonds.    75  cents. 

Tlie  Oate  of  I'earl.   50  cents. 

The  M'onderf III  Pocket,  50  cents. 

The  yiagic  Shoes.   50 cents. 

The  yiayic  Spectacles,  50  cents 

Any  of  the  above  books  sent  post  paid  on  receipt  of  price. 

Address 

XISO  Chestnut  St.,  ntiliiilrljthia ,  ra. 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH 


are  brought  within  tlie  rcacli  of  all  in  the  following  inexpensive  editions  of 

BOOKS  BY  EMANUEL  SWEDENBORG. 

The  New  .fertisnlem  ami  its  Hen renl >/  liovtrine.  I.imp 

cloth,  :o  cents    A  concise  hand-book  of  the  theology  of  the  New  Church. 

A  Itfief  Kjcitositioii  tt/' the  Itovtiuiies  of  the.  Xetv  Chtirch. 

Taper,  15  cents.    Tile  new  doctrine  and  the  old  contrasted. 

Heaven  and  its  M'ouilers  and  Hell.  Paper,  15  cents.  "From 
things  hcar<l  aiul  seen." 

The  IHrine  I^ore  and  It  'isdont.  Paper.  20  cents.  Treating  of  the 
Divine  Nature,  and  of  the  creation  and  sustenance  of  the  world. 

The  ttivine  J'r»ridenee.  Paper.  15  cents.  '  The  government  of  the 
Divine  l.ove  and  Wisdom." 

The  itoetrine  of  the  I^ofd,  I.inip  cloth.  10  cents.  The  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  is  tiod  in  Ilis  Divine  Hiiniaiiity .   Full  confirmation  from  the  Word. 

The  Itoetfine  of  the  Saered  Set-ipt^ife.  Limp  cloth.  10  cents. 
The  Word  shown  to  be  the  Divine  Truth  containing  throughout  a  spirit- 
ual meaning 

The  noetfine  of  Faith.   Limp  Cloth,  10  cents.    "  Faith  cannot  exist 

with  any  but  such  as  are  in  charity." 
Tlie  Ifoeti'ine  of  Liife.    Limp  cloth.  10  cents.  Based  on  the  Ten  Com- 

niandnients. 

TIte  Itoetfine  0/  Charity.  Limp  cloth,  10  cents.  Charity  shown  to 
be  a  life  ot  iisefnlncss  in  obedience  to  the  Lord. 

The  Four  I.,eadinff  Doctrines.  Cloth,  75  cents.  Concerning  the 
Lord,  the  Sacred  Scripture,  Life,  and  Faith. 

Tlte  True  Christitni  Jteligion.  2  vols.  Cloth,  $1,25.  Containing 
the  Universal  Theology  of  the  New  Church. 

The  Apoealypse  lierealed.  Cloth,  $1  50.  An  explanation  of  the 
spiritual  sense  of  the  Revelation  of  John. 

The  Apoealfutse,  E.rplained.  6  vols.  4  vols,  ready.  Cloth.  $6.00. 
A  posthiiiiions  work,  rich  in  explanations  of  passages  from  all  parts  of 
the  Sacred  Scriptures. 

The.  Areann  Co'lestin.  10  vols.  Cloth,  per  volume,  $1.00.  An  F:xpla- 
iiation  of  the  internal  sense  of  Genesis  and  Exodus. 

Imlex  to  Arcana  Coplestia.   Cloth,  51.25. 

Sttnunary  Ejcjtosition  of  tlie  Propliets  and  Psalms.  Cloth, 
40  cents.    All  outline  of  the  internal  sense. 

The  Xature  of  the  Intercourse  bettveeti  the  Soul  and 

Body.   Paper.  7  cents. 
Con.ittyiiil  Love.    Cloth,  $1.00.    The  spiritual  nature  and  sanctity  of 

marriage. 

The.  If'hite.  Horse.  Paper,  6  cents.  Explaining  the  internal  sense  of 
Revelation  xix.  11-16. 

The  Eartlis  in  the  Universe,  Paper,  15  cents.  The  inhabitants 
of  other  earths. 

The  Tjust  .Tadgtnent.  Paper.  15  cents.  Predicted  in  the  Apocalypse, 
and  accomplished  in  the  spiritual  world  in  the  year  1757. 

Conntendiuni  of  the  TheologictU  Worhs  of  Emanuel 
Sivedenhorg.  773  pages.   Cloth.  5150. 

The  prices  given  above  are  for  the  cheaper  editions  and  include  postage. 
Several  of  the  books  are  bound  in  various  other  styles,  a  catalogue  of  which 
will  be  supplied  on  application. 

Address    ^^lXiI^im:  h.  j^iL.iD:Ei<r , 

St20  Chestnut  St.,  M'hilnAvlphia,  Pa. 


f 


